Wandering Souls
by Shalcro
Summary: Ryuzaki Toge is a wandering soul in the midst of Europe in search of whatever the world has to offer for her curiosity. On her never-ending search she meets a man who calls himself General Yeager and tells her she's an accommodator for the Innocence she already carries. Will her search for nothing finally be over? Rated T for swearing, sexual situations, and violence. Some OCxChar
1. I

…

AN: WOOT FOR OC FANFICS. WHY AM I DOING THIS. I DON'T KNOW. Well I have had this fanfic idea ever sense I first watched -Man way back at the end of last year. I never finished the anime and one of my friends who really likes the anime said if I don't watch it and read all of the manga she'd cut out my liver soooooo. HERE'S A FANFIC ABOUT ME AND HER BEING EXORISTS YAY.

Now please note I still haven't watched all the anime so This can only go for as far as I've gotten. But I hope to finish the anime and the manga by the end of the month so, yay me. I'll probably update this story however fast I write the chapters and however fast my Beta can read and edit them. But, hey, it's summer so there'll be lots of time. So anyways I hope you enjoy the story for now! See you in the next chapter! Shalcro~

…

I

…

"I need two whole rack of ribs please!"

"Two racks of ribs? I don't see anyone with you. You going to eat them all by yourself?"

"Don't underestimate my stomach."

"Alright, two racks of ribs coming up," The waitress rolled her eyes as she wrote down the order, "That'll be 15 pounds."

I pulled out my wallet from my pants pocket and looked at the few coins inside. I poured them out onto the counter as the waitress let out a heavy sigh.

"Uhhh… there's a pound, another, fifty pence, eighty pence…"

"You're 4 pounds short."

Well, shit.

My stomach growled… looks like it's life decision time.

"Forget about the second rack."

"Alright, who's that for?"

"Ryuzaki Toge."

The waitress took the coins she needed off the counter, "One rack of ribs for one Ryuzaki Toge. Go find yourself a table."

…

It was dark by the time I got out of the restaurant. It didn't take me long to finish that rack of ribs, but it was almost the end of sundown by the time I got in. Now I had to find a place to stay for the night.. but did I have enough money was the question.

It looked like it was the streets for me again, until I could find another job. I was just a wandering soul really, traveling from town to town, picking up jobs and making a small profit on the way. I'd been doing it ever since I was thirteen, so about four years by this time. Quite the number of things had happened since I went out alone, but those stories are for another time.

The most important thing right then was finding a place to stay, even if it was in a back alley for the night. I was kind of in a pissed off mood now that I probably wouldn't have a place to stay, but I supposed I would just keep trudging on until I ran out of energy...

I felt a small tap on my shoulder as I walked. I stopped in my tracks, wondering if it would be okay to turn around. It could be a pickpocket, but it wasn't like I had anything worth stealing. I wasn't weak either, I was fully capable of defending myself.

I shook off my hesitation and turned around, coming face-to-face with an unfamiliar man.

"What?" I asked with a scowl. I was not having any of this shit, I just wanted to got sit down, please and thank you! But this man said nothing and just continued staring at me.

"If you got something to say, spit it out now or I'm leaving."

He, of course said nothing again.

But then, before I could turn away, his face began expanding in ways that weren't humanly possible. His skin began to rip as a large grey sphere began to form from inside his body. Canon like things began to poke out of the now fully grey sphere's body and began to aim, at me.

I jumped out of the way as quickly as I could, landing on my side with my arms blocking my face. The blast came shortly after and white, dusty smoke filled the air. I coughed a bit as I felt my eyes water from the dust.

I opened them as soon as I could to see the thing floating above me. _Another one of these things, huh?_ I sneered, shaking my head slightly. I've run into them before, but I have no idea why they're after me. I mean these things - or annoyances, as I like to call them - can't be an everyday thing, can they? At least I know how to get rid of them.

"Ahhhh, shit!" I huffed, pulling away my arms as I quickly jumped back up on my feet.

"Stay down!" I heard someone yell from behind me. Like hell I was staying down! Why would someone go up and fight that thing?! I jumped back up to my feet and looked around to see the man in question who was yelling at me. He looked... old, to say the least; his hair was long straight and white, sporting a white mustache and a long black and gold poncho of sorts.

"Like hell I'm staying down! I can handle this, **you** get back!" I yelled back. Now, I wouldn't normally be so curt but like I said before, I was just in a shitty mood. But I figured I might as well get rid of this thing now that it's here.

I ripped off my cloak and reached behind my back, fingers curling around the hilt of the sword I had concealed underneath.

"I've got this!" I pulled up my sword gripping it hard with my two hands. "AHHHHH!" I raced forwards with as much speed as I could muster jumping up and pulling up my sword above my head on the way.

Time began to slow almost as I jumped in the air. I could see the thing's terrible face then. I stared down at it, feeling almost nothing for the creature I had no words to describe. My sword came in contact with the face, as the long blade punctured and began to rip through its skin.

I felt every moment the blade made as it cut through the thing. I still felt nothing, just the sensation of my blade cutting through a flesh-like structure.

I made a hard fall to the ground after the cut finished. I felt myself rolling a bit on the ground as I tried to put my hands behind my head to protect it, only to have they flail at my side as I skid to a stop.

The explosion came next, but there was nothing I could do about that. The loud noise filled my ears, leaving a sharp, high-pitched ringing in my ears.

I hopped back up on my feet again, looking around. When I looked up I saw a whole sky filled with those things. _Wait… when did they get there?_ I thought, shock flaring in my eyes. _Why are there so many?!_ Some of them began to explode and split apart as I watched.

I looked up in shock from the sheer amount of them. I've dealt with maybe two or three of these things at a time but not this many, not a whole sky full!

As I watched I didn't notice one of them getting closer to me until the sound of reloading guns filled my already hurt ears.

_Shit!_I took a step back, panic making my heart race. _My sword I need my sword where's my sword?!_ I looked down only to see it off to the side. _Shit shit shit shit shit…!_

The thing exploded in front of me with no warning, sending me flying backwards. I felt my head hit on something upon impact, and my vision went black.

…


	2. II

…

(Authors Notes at end of chapter)

…

II

…

"Oh Jesus!" I almost yelled as I woke up from my sleep, or was I unconscious? I can't remember.

Was I working and passed out again..? That tends to happen to me a lot. I sat up from where I was laying and looked at my surroundings. I seemed to be in on a small couch, in a very small room. Said room had some cupboards on the wall and what looked to be a small kitchen on the side.

"Shit, where'd I end up this time?" Just as the words left my mouth, a sharp string of pain hit my head. "Ow ow ow ow! That hurts!" I pushed my hand to my forehead when I felt something that shouldn't have been there. I felt a bit more on my head, trying to figure out what they were.

"Those are bandages, you hit your head pretty hard in your fight." Oooooh, that's right, I had gotten in a fight with one of those things again.

"Oh yeah, that's what happened." I looked up to see that man again, the one with the white hair, standing in the doorway. "... Wait! Why are you here?!" I pointed at him, "And what happened to those things?! I thought I was the only one who could kill them!"

He stepped into the small room and pushed down my arm that was still pointing at him,

"Don't worry. 'Those things', as you put it, have been taken care of. I have a few things to explain so please, stay."

"Can I ask a few questions before you explain?" I asked while stretching a bit.

"Feel free." He said, sitting himself on the couch across from mine.

"Where am I?"

"You're in my carriage." _Well. That explains why this place is so small._

"Okay, why am I in your carriage?"

"Because after I treated your wounds you needed a place to rest."

"Will you let me go after this?"

"That depends."

"Depends? Depends on what?" I asked, narrowing my eyes.

"On what you say. It'd be best if I explain to you now, though." I was still a bit confused on what he meant by 'It depends on what I say' but...

_Once he explains it should be summed up, right?_ I thought.

"You're an exorcist." _Huh?_

"What, you mean those guys in mythology that kill demons! Yeah right! Why would I be one of those?" I laughed, rolling my eyes.

"You are. Those things that you killed back there _were_ 'demons'. Only exorcists can destroy them."

"So what if I can kill 'demons'?" I used my fingers to make fake quotations. "What do you want with me?" I scowled, not liking the way this was going.

"I myself am an exorcist, I can destroy akuma too. I destroyed the ones that you didn't after you passed out. An exorcists job is to destroy Akuma which are the weapons of the Millenium Earl. He-"

"Wait, who's this 'Earl' guy?" He sighed before continuing his explanation.

"He is the enemy of the exorcists, and the creator of akuma. He's killed thousands of people with his akuma and keeps making akuma and needs to be stopped." I was surprised at how calmly he reacted to me cutting him off. Most people would get mad, but he keep his cool, I respect him for that.

"Okay, I see your point. This Earl guy makes demons that kill lots of people and we exorcists kill the demons to stop them from killing people. Makes sense but again, why do you want me?" I asked putting my heads behind me head and slumping in my seat a bit.

"You're an exorcist, I work for the Black Order. The Black Order is the organization that fights against the Milleniun Earl and his plans. Since you can destroy akuma, I would like to offer you a job at the Order as an exorcist."

"Before we go any further can I ask, why are you calling them 'Akuma'? This is England, shouldn't we be speaking English?" I asked, raising my eyebrows.

"What do you mean?"

"Your calling these things 'Akuma', Akuma is Japanese for demon. Did this Black Order start in Japan or something?"

"Oh, I didn't know that. But I'm not sure where the Order started."

"Humph, well I'm half Japanese is all. It's kinda bothering me. Anyways, you want to offer me a job?"

"Yes, as an exorcist, your main job will be to destroy 'Demons' and look for Innocence."

"Innocence, well if you looking for that in me, it's long gone." I smirked, He gave me an 'Are you serious' look, which told me I had obviously said the wrong thing.

"Innocence is a substance that we exorcists change into weapons called anti-akuma weapons, it is known as one of the only substances that can destroy akuma when turned into weapons. Though the Millenium Earl wishes to destroy all Innocence, so we need to collect it before he can."

"Okay, keep going."

"I suspect your sword to have Innocence in it, since you used it to destroy an akuma."

"Oh you mean Theodore?" I asked as I pulled a cigarette from my pants pocket.

"Theodore?" He asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

"Yeah, that's my swords name." I said, pulling out a lighter from another one of my pockets and stuffing the cigarette in my mouth before lighting the end. I then put my hand behind my back to grab Theodore, only to find it not there.

"Give me a moment." He stepped out of the carriage. While I waited for his return I opened up the carriage window, only to be courteous while smoking. I leaned out the window a bit and blew out some smoke.

I turned my head when I felt the carriage move a bit. I saw that he came in holding Theodore across both arms - it was a long sword, after all - and watched as he placed Theodore on the table.

My sword was a good 3 and half feet long. It had a golden guard with small red beads at each end. In the middle of the guard was a green gem that had two curve like golden blades. I had quickly noticed that they spin when I fight what this guy called 'akuma'. It had curved golden blades on each side of the sword. The grip was covered in a tight leather wrap, while the pommel had another green gem on it and, again, two golden blades that almost looked like a 'S'.

"Sorry about that, I was having some of my Finders inspect Theodore to see if it had any Innocence."

"Alright, but let me show you this."

I began to unwrap the leather from around the grip and once that was done it revealed the name 'Theodore' carved into the metal of the grip.

"That's why I call him Theodore. I think it might be the original creator of the swords name, but I'm not sure."

"I see. My Finders say that Theodore is very likely to have Innocence, though it's pretty much confirmed since you destroyed that akuma."

"Finders?" I replied in a questioning tone.

"Finders are people who work for the Black Order that are not exorcists. Their job is to survey the lands to look out for things that could be Innocence and report akuma attacks. The order has been following you through Finders for a while now, some Finders reported that they saw someone not from the Order destroying akuma and reported it-"

"Isn't that a little creepy?"

"I suppose you could say it is, but after it was reported I came here to find you and to ask you to become an exorcist. You see, I am a General of the order. My job is carry many pieces of Innocence to find accommodators for Innocence and to turn them into exorcists. You, yourself, are an accommodator for the innocence in Theodore, which is why you can activate the Innocence in Theodore and destroy akuma." I puffed out some more smoke rings out the carriage window as he explained before I placed myself back in my seat.

"That makes more sense now. You done explaining then?" I asked.

"Yes. So would you like to join the Black Order as an Exorcist? You job will be to destroy akuma and collect Innocence as an apostle of God." I sighed as I contemplated all of which he just told me. _It sounds like a full time gig, and I can never hold a job for very long anyways._ I let out another sigh before replying.

"Will there be free food?"

"Yes"

"... I'm in."

…

AN: Huzzah! I finished another chapter! Sorry it tock so long though, I've just been lazy and I'm finding it hard to write these early chapters because it's all just boring explanation. Probably around chapter 4 or 5 is when the real plot will start! I hope to update more often around then! Thanks to those who reviewed and followed!

Best Wishes,

Shalcro~

…


	3. III

…

III

…

With all explanations over with I was on my way to becoming an exorcist. General Yeager, as the man called himself, said he has some business to attend to at the Black Order so he offered me a ride there. He said it would be better for him to bring me to the Order than a Finder, anyways, so I understood.

The trip to the order took about two days to get to, since we were pretty close already. Throughout the trip we stopped at a few towns, though only for a few hours to restock on food and, of course, cigarettes for me. I don't remember why I started smoking, but all I know is that I've been doing it for at least two years now and I haven't stopped. I could stop if I wanted to, but I was just too lazy.

There was thankfully enough space for the three of us - me, General Yeager, and Jackson, the Finder who was driving the carriage - to all sleep in the tiny carriage. So we all slept in the carriage together for one night. The other night we stayed at an inn in a town we passed by. I was pretty thankful to General Yeager for paying for a separate room for me since I didn't have any money on me.

During the trip, General Yeager and I passed time by playing cards and him telling me stories about his youth. Turns out he was a teacher before he became an exorcist then a general. I felt pretty bad for him when he told me that his whole class of students was killed when one of students was turned into an akuma.

Oh, did I mention he told me how akuma are made? They're made from other peoples sorrow over their dead loved ones. Sick, I know. Now I really hate that Earl guy, people's sorrow should not be taken advantage of under any circumstances.

Anyways, we made it rather quickly to the Black Order.. well it wasn't the _real_ Black Order, General Yeager said that one would be Central. The branch was the European branch, meant only for Europe.

We got up to the Order by some underground elevator, where we got up to a large gate decorated with crosses that lead to a large tower-like building, which I assumed to be the Order.

"Welcome Back, General Yeager." _Hang on a tick, who said that?_I looked around myself for whoever said that. I soon found myself almost letting the cigarette I had in my mouth fall to the dirt ground when I saw myself looking straight at an animated stone face on the wall between the two gates.

"Good evening, Gatekeeper." General Yeager replied, apparently used to the strangeness.

"I see you've brought someone with you. Is this the new exorcist everyone's been talking about?" _This makes no sense!_

"Yes this is Ryuzaki Toge. Ryuzaki, this is the Gatekeeper, he makes sure akuma don't get into the Order." _Uhhhh, what?_

"Uhhhhh… Hi?" _I-I… I can't..._

"Hello!" The Gatekeeper spoke. Jolly guy he is though, I'll give him that.

"Ryuzaki, Gatekeeper is going to perform an examination to make sure you're not an akuma, please stay still."

"WAIT _WHAT_?! General! You already know I'm not an akuma! I'm an exorcist not a-"

"Miss Toge! Please calm down it's part of the rules! Everyone needs to be examined, what if-"

…

Meanwhile…

…

"Komui, sir. General Yeager is back at the Order with the new exorcist, you're going to need to greet her and all that stuff, so please be ready." When Reever heard no response he let out a heavy sigh. He set down his rather large stack of papers and turned around to his desk only to find him asleep, like always. He let out another sigh and walked up to his desk.

"Hey Komui, Lenalee's found herself a boyfriend." His whispered in his ear, giving a small giggle afterwards.

Komui instantly jumped out his seat and pulled out a drill from god knows where and shouted, "WHO IS IT?! WHO IS TRYING TO TAINT MY DEAR LENALEE'S HEART! I WILL RIP OUT THEI-"

"Just kidding." Reever said smirking, his arms crossed.

"You sick bastard." Komui scowled, as he dropped the drill.

"Komui, General Yeager is back with the new exorcist, I need you to prepare for her arrival, you know be ready-"

"Wait, what new exorcist?" Komui interrupted, Reever facepalmed.

"General Yeager sent in a voice report two days ago saying that he found the girl who was destroying akuma who wasn't part of the Order."

"Who?" Reever facepalmed harder.

"The one girl who we've been tracking through finders for the past three months!"

"Who?"

"AHHH! IS THERE NO END TO YOU?!" Reever shouted.

Reever began to search through the_many_ papers on Komui's desk for General Yeager's report on Ryuzaki. When he found it halfway through, thankfully, the first stack of papers he searched through, he threw the file at in Komui's direction, hitting him straight in the face.

"Read it." Reever demanded,

"_Fine."_ Komui picked up the file, opened it, and began to read.

_Name: Ryuzaki L. Toge_

_Age: 17_

_Sex: Female_

_Height: 5"7_

_Appearance: Waist length, thick dark brown hair. Hair covers left eye. Hair held in high ponytail or braid. Wears baggy black tank top with cargo pants. Carries around two-hand long-sword in sheath hung around her upper body with a leather strap._

_Notes: Innocence is suspected to in her two-hand longsword. Often smokes._

Beside her information on the report was a small picture that had been taken of her while finders were tracking her. It was a sketchy looking picture taken of her while she had been working on one her jobs. For the looks of it she was probably doing open air mining. When the finders had been tracking her they had gathered simply information, like her name, and appearance, but this could have been considered a break through with the information on her. General Yeager really went all out on collecting information on her, but he's always been faithful to his job, so it was as expected.

"Oooohh! So you're talking about _her_! I've been wanting to meet her! She looks interesting! I'll prepare for her arrival right away!"

"God damn it Komui."

…

After about a good ten minutes of arguing whether I was an akuma or not. I finally decided just to give the argument up and let the weird Gatekeeper guy give me my examination.

It didn't take as long as I thought it would, Gatekeeper just shone a bright yellow light on me through his eyes. Twenty seconds later he confirmed I wasn't an akuma and followed to examine General Yeager too. He wasn't an akuma either, so he opened the gates to let us in, giving use a jolly 'Good day' on our way in.

At this point I was starting to feel the butterflies enter my stomach. I didn't know why, but I was feeling awfully nervous. Maybe it was the fact that I was in a place that I'd never been before, or maybe because it was kind of like an interview for a new job, I didn't know. But to keep me calm I took some deep breathes as we walked through the Orders main doors. General Yeager asked me if I was nervous, I told that I was a bit, but he said it was only normal, which also gave me some reassurance.

As we walked through the Order's doors into a main looking hall a small little black orb with bat like wings popped up from one of General Yeager's pockets and began to speak.

"Hello? General Yeager, this is Komui. Can you hear me?" I assumed the little guy was some kind of walky-talky in a sense, seeing as that some Komui guy was trying to reach General Yeager through it.

"Yes Komui, I can hear you fine. Do you need something?"

"I've been trying to contact your golem for the past ten minutes! The reception on it is terrible! I think it's about time you get a new one, General."

"I feel that I should use this one until it breaks completely. If I get a new one now I'll have been wasting materials." _Hey, I do that with my stuff too._

"We could always make a new one out of this ones parts, that way you wouldn't be wasting materials." General Yeager put a hand up as to tell him to stop.

"That won't be necessary, we've got a new exorcist to handle, remember?"

"Right! Sorry about that!" The 'golem', as he put it, flew in front of me and spoke. "You must be Ryuzaki! Our new exorcist! I'm Branch Head Komui Lee! It's nice to meet you!" I wasn't really sure what to do, I was pretty much talking to a bat. So I just gave a smile and said.

"It's nice to meet ya' too, Komui." And as a bit of a joke I blew some smoke from my almost finished cigarette at the golem. I gave a chuckle as the little guy flapped his wing frantically to get rid of the smoke.

"You're like _him_…" The golem said in an undertone.

"Like who?" I smirked, arching my eyebrows.

"Nothing, nothing, come up to my office and I'll properly greet you. There's a few things we have to do before you can become an official exorcist."

"Okay then, Mr. Branch Head." I responded. The golem then slipped itself back into the General's pocket. We continued our way into the Order to Komui's office, while General Yeager told me about each of the places we stopped. On our way up some stairs I decided to ask General Yeager about the golems.

"So what was that thing you were using earlier?" I asked, while taking the finished cigarette out my mouth and putting it out on the bottom of my boot, tossing the butt aside on the ground.

"That was a golem. They're used for recording what exorcists do, and are also used for communication between people of the Order. You'll get your own golem as well."

"That's the second creepy thing I've heard about this place."

"And what's that?"

"The fact that golems record, I'm assuming, everything exorcists do. I'm starting to question this place now."

"It's for safety. What if an exorcist was on a mission and needed help? They wouldn't know if they couldn't see them."

"You have a point, but I still find it creepy."

"Think of it as you like, but it's still for safety reasons." he sighed.

…

We continued up to Komui's office in silence until we made it to two large wooden doors. They were at _least_ around 14 feet tall, and reminded me of large wooden doors that you see in old churches. We stepped inside to see probably the worlds messiest office ever.

Papers, files, letters, you name it were all over the floor, walls, all of the whole room in general. People were running around carrying stacks of papers several feet high from desk to desk. They all looked super busy, I almost felt if I even took one step inside they'd all yell at me for stepping on some really important document or something. I was kind of glad I finished my cigarette already, because if I still had it now, it would have fallen out of my mouth and set all of papers on fire.

I watched as General Yeager just stepped inside while I stood behind him, afraid to take another step. When he realized I wasn't following him, he turned around and said.

"It always like this with these people, don't worry, they won't get made at you for coming inside." _Did he just read my mind? ... Yeah, he just read my mind._

After I realized I was probably looking like an idiot right then, I recomposed myself and stepped inside the paper covered room, trying to be careful that papers didn't get stuck to the bottom of my boots. To make sure that didn't happen I walked on the tips of my toes, and followed General Yeager into the room. I noticed that there were also super tall bookshelves near the back of the room, each filled to the brim with books. _Probably records..?_

We soon reached a desk with a grown Chinese man with dark purple hair that almost reached his shoulder. His hair curved out a bit at the ends as well. He wore thin framed glasses, a beret, a light blue turtle neck, white pants, and a long white coat that looked more like a uniform, probably was anyways. He was working at the speed of quick to get what looked like a shit ton of papers done. There was also another man behind him with messily pushed back blond hair and a bit of chin stubble pretty much glaring at him from behind his desk.

_This must be Komui._

As me and the General walked up to his desk, he quickly looked up from his probably to the sound of crunching paper. I saw his face light up as he quickly jumped out of his chair towards us.

"LENALEE!" He yelled as he ran past us causing a few papers to fly off the floor into the air for a few moments. I looked behind myself to find him latched to a teenaged girl's leg.

She was also Chinese and looked to be no older then 16. Her hair was long and held in two cute pigtails. She was wearing a uniform similar to his, but it was black instead of white, and had a short cute skirt. She was also holding a tray that had a number of coffee mugs on it.

"LENALEE! I'M SO GLAD YOU'RE OKAY! REEVER TOLD ME YOU GOT A BOYFR-" There was a loud crash as I watched as she kicked him off her leg sending him flying at the nearest wall. I winched a bit as I watched him crash face first into the wall. Okay, whoever that chick was, she's got my respect. Kicking a grown man at a wall like that took some real strength. I heard her sigh a bit before looking at General Yeager.

"Oh, Hello General Yeager. I heard you were back with the new exorcist so I came up here to meet her, and of course see you again."

"It's good to see you too Lenalee. How have you and your brother been?" He asked. I was pretty shocked at how nonchalant he was acting. I mean she just threw that guy at a wall. I was really starting to question how much logic applies to this place, because it surely didn't seem like a lot.

"Oh you, know the same as always." She said tilting her shoulder a bit to the wall were she had chucked who I assumed to be Komui. _So I guess they're brother and sister, makes sense. I mean, they look so similar. I guess Komui is just a bit over protective, seeing from his last performance, I guess._

They continued the small talk a bit more until I heard someone speak from behind me.

"Hello, you must be Ryuzaki Toge, am I wrong." It was Komui, or at least I thought so.

"Yeah.. that's me. You are?" I asked, still a bit shaken up.

"I'm Komui Lee, Head of the European Black Order Branch. Nice to meet you." He held out a hand for me to shake, which I did, trying my best to stay calm in this weird-ass place.

"Nice to meet you too. I'm assuming you're the one who was talking to General Yeager through his golem?" I asked.

"Yup, that was me! Let me introduce you to my lovely sister! Lenalee!" As he said that he put his hands on my shoulders and pushed me forward towards the girl from earlier who was still chatting with General Yeager.

"Lenalee! This is the new exorcist Ryuzaki Toge!" I was still being pushed by him like I was a box on wheels. Lenalee turned around from her chat with General Yeager and looked at me.

Thankfully Komui stopped pushing me and she smiled brightly.

"Hi there! I'm Lenalee, another exorcist!" She said holding out a hand for me to shake again.

"Hi… I'm Ryuzaki, nice to… meet you.." Okay, I'm actually a bit scared of this chick, not to mention she's an exorcist too, which makes her even more dangerous. _Remind me to never get on her bad side._

"Ryuzaki, I'll show you around this division so you can meet everyone then there's something we got to do before I can make you an official exorcist."

"O-okay." _This place is filled with freaks_.

…

The next twenty minutes were filled with meeting the people of the office. All of them were scientists, which was pretty cool. Meeting these people calmed me down a bit since all of them were normal people. One of them I met, called Reever, told me this place was always pretty crazy, and that I'd get used to it. That calmed me down the most, though. I guess he could sense I was a bit uneasy.

Anyways, after that whole fiasco, Komui took me out of the crazy office room of no return. Thank God. Although General Yeager had to leave for his own work, which was understandable, I wished him a farewell. Just as I pretty much calmed down Lenalee came along with me and Komui to this 'thing' we had to do, saying it was for moral support. _Shit, what the fuck does she mean by moral support? What do I need support for?! Jesus, what, what, what…_

She was then officially evil. Behind that sweet smile of hers, was the devil. I knew it. I just knew it.

So we boarded a lift that was in the center of the tower part of the order. Komui told me that we were going to see someone named Hevlaska. I asked why we had to get on a lift to see this Hevlaska, but Lenalee and Komui, both giggled a bit and said, "You'll see."

Those two were both the devil, then. I _swear_ I saw horns popping out of both their heads. I just sighed and waited. I guess that's all I could do at that time.

The lift kept taking us down farther and farther, till it was almost so dark you couldn't see anything. But that darkness ended when the room we were in was lit up by a light blue light.

Now this is where I stopped in my tracks at what I was looking at. I didn't really know what to feel at this point. I've just seen so much weird shit today that I guess I was expecting anything at this point.

What I was staring up at was a huge, like really huge, almost snake looking creature with a humanistic face. It was mostly hair, but also had long arm things that almost looked like a birds feet. Only a nose, lips, and a chin, were visible on the face as it looked down at the lift.

I was going to say something, but I didn't. I just stood there, with my hands on my chin, wondering what I was looking at. Once the lift stopped, it spoke.

"Hello Komui, Lenalee." It spoke, very slowly, in an almost heavenly female voice.

"Good evening, Hevlaska. How have you been." Komui and Hevlaska, I guessed, continued small talk, and Lenalee scooted over to me and began to speak.

"Ryuzaki, this is Hevlaska, she's an accomodator for Innocence like us."

"Wait, really?!" I asked a bit too loudly.

"Yes, she is human like us, but her Innocence changed her into this. Don't worry though, she's actually a really nice person."

_Well, I guess if she used to be human, then it would be rude to treat her like a creature._

Soon after that Hevlaska finished her conversation with Komui. The two seemed to be very close, from the way they talked. After their conversation ended Hevlaska turned her head to look at me.

"You are Ryuzaki Toge, am I correct?" She asked.

"Y-yes! I'm Ryuzaki." I was a bit scared to be honest, but I guess when you're looking at someone like this for the first time, anyone would be.

"I am Hevlaska. I hold and protect Innocence here."

"Nice to meet you, H-Hevlaska!" I stammered, trying to be polite.

"Ryuzaki, may I see your sword?" She asked again, in her slow voice. I had to admit her voice was very calming, almost in an angelic way, filled with care and patience.

"Why?" I asked.

"Hevlaska needs to check if your sword really does hold Innocence." Komui explained.

"Oh, right." I pulled Theodore out of his sheath and held him lied across both hands. I walked up to the edge of the lift and held up my arms a bit so Hevlaska could take him.

I watched in awe as she took the sword with her strands of hair and held Theodore up against her body. She whispered some words that seemed to be in almost an alienestic language for a few moments before pulling Theodore back away from her chest.

"I have confirmed that this sword does truly contain Innocence, and that it resonates with Ryuzaki Toge." I heard Komui let out a quick sigh before turning to me.

"Well that's good, Ryuzaki, you are the accommodator for your swo-."

"Theodore."

"What?"

"My swords name is Theodore."

"Okay, well, you're the accommodator for the Innocence inside 'Theodore', but we need to check one last thing."

"And what's that?" _Will this day ever end?_

"We'd like to check your synchronization rate with the Innocence." Hevlaska responded.

"I'm sure General Yeager explained it to you on your way here." Komui said.

"Yes he did, I'm pretty sure he explained all he could before we got here. What do you need me to do?" I asked, just really wanting this be over with already.

"We'll need you to active your Innocence and Hevlaska will measure your synchronization rate." Komui stated.

"Okay then. Ready when you are." Right after I said that Hevlaska picked me up very gently by the waist with her hair strands. I freaked out a bit at first and thought about lashing out, but I kept my cool and let Hevlaska, pull me towards Theodore.

"Hold out your hands." she spoke. I did as I was told and held out both of my hands and she placed Theodore in my hands. I fixed the way I was holding Theodore so I was holding him properly.

"Activate your Innocence when you are ready." Hevlaska spoke again. I nodded and took a deep breath, then closed my eyes and began to focus on my Innocence.

"Innocence, activate." I whispered. As soon as I said those two words I felt the blades on the side of Theodore's hilt begin to spin and I knew that my Innocence had activated. It felt strange, though, like I could feel the power of the Innocence running threw me. I felt _powerful_. I didn't know why it felt this way, though, no matter how many akuma I killed before it never felt like this, but I shoved the thought out of my mind and went back to focusing on keeping my Innocence activated.

"4%, 13%, 17%." I heard Hevlaska begin to count, "20%, 26%, 28%." _Just keep activating._I thought to myself, "32%, 36%, 40%, 44%, 46%, 48%." That's were she stopped counted, and I felt myself being moved and gently placed back down on the lift.

"Ryuzaki. You can stop activating your innocence now." I heard Lenalee speak. It quickly snapped me out of trance as I quickly snapped my eyes open, I felt the blades on Theodore stop spinning. I loosened my grip on Theodore a bit and turned around to look back at Hevlaska.

"Your synchronization rate is 48%." She stated.

"That's impressive Ryuzaki, most new exorcist's rates are usually much lower than that." Lenalee said encouragingly.

"But it makes sense that her synchronization rate is so high, she has been destroying akuma long before we even found her."

"That's true Lenalee, I've been killing akuma for quiet a long time before I even knew about the order." I responded, placing Theodore back in his sheath.

"Well you do have a point, an exorcists synchronization rate does raise the more the exorcist uses the Innocence."

"Yup." Komui stated confidently, "Well thankfully that's the last thing we have to do today Ryuzaki. I've got another exorcist that's going to show you around the Order and look out for you for the next few days."

"Sounds good to me." _Glad that's done with._With that we said are goodbyes to Hevlaska, who I thought then, wasn't that bad, and Komui took us up with the lift.

We then made it back up in the lit area and we stopped at floor with a woman standing against one of the pillars for the walls. Komui let me off the lift from there and was left with the woman. She looked up from the floor she was staring at and smiled.

"Hey, I'm Serein Trouvaille."

…

AN: SWEET JESUS ON A MOTORCYCLE THIS CHAPTER TOKE ME FOREVER. Damn I legit have been working on this sense around noon today and now it's 6:00pm. IT TOKE ME FOREVER. I knew this chapter was going to be long, but not this long. I even considered splitting it in half but I didn't. Anyways I'm just so glad I got this done. I really hope you enjoyed this chapter because it toke me forever. I would say more but I just want this to be done already. I'll see you all next chapter. K THX BYE

…


	4. IV

…

IV

…

"_Hey, I'm Serein Trouvaille."_

_Serein? That's not a name you hear everyday._I guessed this chick was exorcist Komui said was going to be taking care of me for the next few days. But holy hot damn, was she prefect. No I don't really dig girls like that (not that I have anything against people who do), but if I was to look at her with a guys eyes then she would be a hooter, everything a guy would be looking for.

Long blond hair that went to about what looked to be mid back, held in a high ponytail, denim blue eyes, and don't even get me started on her chest. The was thick metal chain wrapped around her chest in a 'X' shape, from what I could see there was a sickle looking weapon hanging down from her back. Not to mention this chain made her chest stand out quiet a bit. Clad in a (what I thought then) exorcist coat that went down just past her knees, black pants, and combat boots.

As much as I found her attractive I couldn't help but be jealous, she was seemingly flawless with looks, while I was sitting here, flat-chested, moody, and smelled of cigarettes. I bet she acts like a goddess too.

"Are you gay?" _Hang on have been staring?_ "You're staring." _Damn it, quick come up with a come back,_

"Sorry girly, but if you're looking for a little somethin' somethin', you ain't getting it from me." _Nailed it,_

"Good." She stated sternly, she then put on a smile and said, "So you're the new exorcist? Ryuzekki was it?"

"_Ryuzaki_." _Damn it not again,_"The name's _Ryuzaki Toge_."

"Sorry, I'm Serein Trouvaille. I'll be watching out for you over the next couple of days, just to make sure you have everything in order. Feel free to ask me anything if you got questions!" Serein held out a hand to shake, I've been doing a lot of that in the past little while it seems. Regardless, I shake her hand.

"Serein." I thought aloud, "Serein, where's your name from?"

"It's French. It's the rain that falls after sunset by a cloudless sky." She spoke in almost a poetic way, "What's yours mean?" she asked.

"Mines Japanese… though I don't know what it means. I think it's a family name of sorts." I sadly spoke.

"That's cool. Say, wanna get something to eat? It's pretty much dinner time, and I'll be able to show you where the cafeteria is too!" My stomach growled at the mention of food,

"Let's go." _She is now my best friend._

The way to the cafeteria was a short walk filled with figuring out little things about me and Serein. I found out she was 18, only a year older then me, she also told me she was 5'9", but I could have figured that out on my own. She was, you guessed it, French, and she also told me that the, what she called, chain scythe wrapped around her body was her anti-akuma weapon. She easily figured out what mine was too.

Even though we had only known each other for about ten minutes I felt like I had already known her for years. She was awfully friendly, and somehow, we got along rather well.

Once we got to the cafeteria, she showed me to a guy called Jerry, the head cook for the order. He was a flirty Indian man, real nice too. When I asked what he could make for me, he said anything. So this guy, is now my second new BFF. I, ordered a large plate of grilled eel, while Serein stuck with some French dish that I forgot the name of instantly. We then found ourselves some seats and continued to chat.

"That's when I took the beer bottle from the fuckers hand and smashed it on his head." I recalled.

"Whoa, you really did that?" Serein asked.

"You bet your tits I did. That fucker had it coming if you ask me."

"Okay, but come on! All he did was flirt with you a bit! And was drunk too! You could have cut that guy some slack." she said, giggling a bit.

"Yeah I know, but I ain't gonna take it from a fat pig of man." I said quickly down another piece of grilled eel, "If anyone's gonna flirt with me it better be a-"

"Hello, Little miss strike." I heard a foreign voice say.

"Oh sweet Jesus no.' I heard Serein sigh.

"What?" I looked to my side to find someone had sit next to me. He was tall at least 6"0 with dark red-orangeish hair held up in a bandana. He had a black long-sleeve on with matching pants to boot. I last thing that caught my eye with him was the eye-patch that covered his left eye. _I wonder what happened to his eye,_was the first thing I thought when I saw him.

"How you been?" He asked.

"Oh my god, Lavi, leave." She half shouted while pointing in some other direction.

"Awww, that's rude Serein." _I see what's going on here, flirt and a non-flirt,_

"Just leave Lavi. I don't want to deal with you right now." The blond sighed, resting her chin on her hand.

"Give me a kiss and I might leave~!" He sang, Serein just ignored him. I just sort of sat there, in the now silent area. After a few moments this guy looked over to me with a big smile on his face.

"So, who are you? I don't think I've ever seen you here before?" he asked with a large grin.

"I'm Ryuzaki Toge, the new exorcist everyone seems to keep talking about." I said, picking up some more eel with my chopsticks.

"Ohhh! That explain why you're with Serein." He tilted his head to the side, gesturing to Serein, "I heard she was in charge of looking after the new exorcist. If I'd known you'd be this cute I would have asked to take her place." I stared questioningly at him for a moment. _Did he just call me cute? Yeah, he called me cute._ I felt my cheeks heat up a bit as I just stared at him, probably blushing quite a bit now.

"It's nice to meet you Ryuzaki." He spoke, not before placing an innocent kiss on my forehead, "I'm Lavi." I couldn't help myself from looking at him while he pulled back and put on a goofy looking grin. ( has stopped working.) (sorry not sorry.)

"Oh, please don't tell me you've fallen for him?" _I… I.. uhhhh…_

"Knowing my luck she probably has!" Lavi sang, "Ain't that right Ryu? Hey can I call you Ryu? I think it's a cute nickname for ya'"

"I think you broke her..."

…

After the whole dinner fiasco and I got my senses back, Serein decided that it would be best to show me around the order. She covered pretty much everything in the Orders building and it was definitely enough to get me by. After that she took me over to the dorms where she said that she would see me to my new room.

We climbed up what seemed to be 4000 stairs before we stopped at one of the floors.

"Alright, this should be the floor that your room is on." Serein stated,

"How can you tell? Every floor looks the same to me." Yeah that was true, every freaking floor in the dorm area was practically identical.

"I think everyone asks that question every once and a while. There's pretty much no numbering system here.. well, there is one, but it makes no sense really."

"What do you mean?" I asked,

"Well each room is numbered by what floor they're on, and how many rooms are on that floor, but-"

"Wait that actually makes sense. Are you telling me-" She quickly slapped a hand over my mouth, obviously not done talking yet.

"_But_there are no numbers on doors so it leaves you to guess what room is which." I licked her hand, she pulled her hand back with a quick yelp.

"Works every time." I mumbled to myself. I watched as she quickly whipped her hand on her coat.

"_Anyways,_but there is a way to figure out what room is which. Your room number 507, so we're on floor 5, and now we count 7 doors to the counterclockwise!"

"What?"

"Do you really get confused that easily?"

"It's what you get for not going to school."

"Ahh, whatever. Just follow me. I swear to god I'm going to paint numbers onto these doors _just for fucking you_." She took a few strides forward as I followed.

"That'd be nice, girly." I winked.

"I'm going to throw you off a waterfall someday."

"You do that, girly." She turned around and gave me a harsh looking glare, I'm not impressed. I raised an eyebrow, unaffected by her glare.

"You got nothin' better than that?" I smirked, "And what's with you and shameless flirtin'? You really don't need to be that harsh, it's kinda offputting."

"I'm asexual, you Japanese fuckface."

"So you jerk off to yourself?" She looked like she was about to blow, she's too easy.

"Just get in your room, shitlord slut." she growled, harshly pointing to the door next to us. I stepped past her and opened the door to what was my so-called room, as she stomped away in fumes.

"By the way! I'm a 100% virgin!" I called back giggling a bit as I quickly slammed the door behind me. I heard her yell out something in French before stomping away louder than before.

_I think we'll be great friends~_

…

AN: Huzzah! Chapter 4 is here! Sorry it toke me so long to write, but I hope the last chapter was long enough to make up for that! At least we got another actually DGM character in here! I hope to involve all the DGM characters in this story at least a bit. Though when I say _all_ the characters I mean most of the characters from around the first 2 seasons on the anime. I'm planning to have this story end around that time.

And we also got another OC… YAY! Though Ryuzaki and Serein will be the only OCs in this story. The story from here on out will mostly focus on Ryuzaki and her interactions with the other DGM character and of course some of Serein too! I hope you guys like both of them though! Anyways, I'll probably be writing chapters a bit more often now that I'm done with all the dumb intro shit. (Or at least I'll try.) One last thing! I was thinking when I originally started this story that it might go past the T rating and into M but thankfully I don't think that's the case anymore. Okay I think that's all I got. See you all next chapter!

Best Wishes,

Shalcro~

…


	5. V

…

V

…

Caww!

_No._

Caww! Caw!

_No, shut up._

CAWW!

_Leave._

Cawww! Caw!

I threw myself out of my bed and shut the window so fast I was afraid I might shatter the glass in the window. Those damn crows were going to take a while to get used to, I mean, how do people put up with them?!

Looking over to the small alarm clock on my bedside table, I checked the time; 9:36am. I probably wasn't going to get any more sleep, because of those fuckers outside, so I decided to get up for the day.

I slipped on my clothes and decided to head off to the shower house before getting some breakfast. I'd decide the rest of today's schedule as the day went on. I slipped on my boots and slung on Theodore by the strap of his sheath.

I pushed the wooden door of the room open to leave, not before noticing a small pile of neatly folded clothes beside my door. There was what seemed to be a piece of paper on top of them.

I bent down, picked up the pile of clothes with one hand, and picked up the paper in the other. The paper was, in fact, a note folded in half, with my name written on it. I opened up the note to find surprisingly neat, handwritten note. It was a bit hard for me to read, since handwriting is something I hadn't read much or all of, but I was able to get the gist of it.

_I went to the town yesterday and got you some more clothes, I believe the ones you were wearing is your only outfit. I thought you would have needed some more. I hope they fit you, I was guessing your size anyways._

_Komui also told me to give you your coat. Exorcists wear these coats for pretty obvious reasons, make sure you wear it 24/7 though, its part of the rules anyways. If you don't like the style of it you can always return it to Komui for another one in a different style. He can make just about anything as long as it meets requirements._

_If you need anything I'll probably be on the training floor or in my room, which is room 218._

_Serein Trouvaille_

Well, that was real nice. I did need some new clothes. I rarely ever bought new ones when I was on my journeys, I found it to much of hassle to carry around 40 changes of clothes. So I just settled with washing my clothes in a river or something every so often, and myself of course. But I guessed that since I would be living here from now on, it would be nice to have a wardrobe. I'd have to thank Serein next time I saw her.

So I made my way back into my room to try on the clothes Serein had generously bought for me. She had bough me pretty much the same clothes I already have. A few tank-tops in a couple different colours, and two pairs of cargo pants. I tried each of the cargo pants on to find they both fit me fine, same thing with the tank-tops though I only tried on one because they were all the same size.

I settled to put on one of the pairs of cargo pants, and a dark blue tank-top. This tank-top seemed different form the others though, almost like a mans tank-top. It showed too much chest for a woman. Yeah, it showed _way_ too much chest for a woman. Damn, I've know that girl for less than a day and she's already pulling tricks on me.

It didn't matter too much for me though, I always wore a bando under my shirts as a form of a bra. I was so flat-chested that I pretty much didn't need one. I actually like men's clothing though, I find it more comfortable then woman's. Woman's clothing is always tight fitting and itchy, men's is more baggy and comfortable, and most importantly, not itchy.

I put away the rest of the clothes Serein had bought me and left my older ones in the laundry hamper. Serein told me yesterday that there are maids that come by people's rooms once a week and wash people's dirty clothes. All I had to do was leave my clothes in the hamper and they would do the rest. Convenient.

The last thing there was to do was to put on my new exorcist coat, as Serein's note put it. I unfolded it and slipped my arms through the sleeves and did up the buttons. I gave myself a quick look in the mirror and found the coat went down just past my knees. It reminded me of the many cloaks I had throughout my journeys. It was surprisingly light for it's looking, and fit me well. I liked it.

I grabbed Theodore once again and headed off to my original destination, the shower house.

…

"Oh, hey Ryuzaki!" A familiar voice rang as I closed the locker door containing my belongs. I looked to my left to see Lenalee smiling brightly next to me.

"Oh! Hi Lenalee." I was stuck in a bit of an awkward situation, the only thing covering me was a big white fluffy towel at the moment, she was no better off. "How have you been?" I asked, trying to focus on her face.

"I've been alright, how about you?" She asked, her bright smile still stuck to her face.

"Okay, I guess. To be honest this place is kinda weird, not that that's bad or anything!" I spoke scratching the back of my head a bit.

"I guess you could say this place is weird, but you'll come to love it, I know it."

I chuckled a bit, "If you say so."

"Come on, we can continue our conversation in the showers!" She quickly spoke gently grabbing my wrist and pulling me along.

We made our way into the shower room where we each chose stalls next to each other. The stalls for the showers were separated by wooden walls that only really showed the other persons feet, pretty standard if you think about it.

I hung my towel up on one of the hooks on the walls of the stall and turned the knob for the water. I suspected it to be like any other shower knob and have right for hot water and left for cold. I was right, so I adjusted the knob to get the right temperature of water. Once it was to my liking I stepped into the showering water, feeling quite at bliss as the warm water hit my body. I let out a relaxed sigh.

"So, how are you liking the Order so far? Have you met any new people?" I heard Lenalee ask from the stall beside me.

"I guess it's alright, but I'm still getting use to it. But I did met a guy who called himself… uhh..." _Shit! I forgot his name!_

"Did you forget his name? I'll probably know who you're talking about if you describe him to me!"

"Uhhh… he was a red-head, had an eye patch. Really likes flirting with girls."

"Ohh! You mean Lavi? He's a friend of mine. If you can look past his constant flirting, he's actually a really sweet guy. Though, he flirts with almost every girl he meets, especially if they're his type." She paused for a moment and I heard her spit out probably some water or soap, which reminded me to get going on washing my body. I began to rub some shampoo in my overly long hair.

"His flirting doesn't bother me to much. When I was out on my journeys, I had guys flirting with me left and right, though I'd always give em' a good hitting if they got too close." I heard her gasp a bit form the other side of the wall.

"You didn't punch him, did you?" she asked, sounding a bit shocked.

"No, no. I think you misunderstood a tick. When I was traveling I had to stick around slums in cities. I never had too much money, so I felt a bit more at home hangin' 'round bars and the such. Those fuckers that flirted with me were all gross pigs who had it coming. You know the ones. Lavi's a nice guy, I honestly… was kinda shocked when he did flirt with me. The way he flirts isn't the kind I'm used to."

"Well, what kind of flirting are you use to?" she asked. I spat a bit of soap that landed in my mouth out before answering.

"I'm use to the kind of, 'Hey, you look pretty, wanna have sex?' act. Heck! I even remember some guy in a bar once asked me if I wanted to join his prostitution business." She gasped again, a little more audible this time.

"Really?" I chuckled a bit.

"Yeah! You can imagine how fast I punched that fucker and left." I paused a moment to grab a washcloth and soap bar for myself, "The way Lavi flirts is _a lot_different for what I'm used'ta, that's why I was pretty much left speechless."

"Ahh, I see! So how'd you meet him anyways?" she asked.

"I was eating dinner with Serein - I'm sure you know her - when he came and sat with us. Serein didn't take too much of a liking to it, if I remember correctly."

"That makes sense, Lavi's always had an eye out for her!" I heard her stall door open, meaning she was done with her shower. I just had to rise off a bit and I'd be done too.

"You don't say. Lemme guess, blonde and big tits, his type?" I spoke, quickly finishing up my rinsing and grabbing my towel.

"Yup!" She laughed, I stepped outside my stall and meet up with Lenalee.

"So where you off to next? She asked as she took the lead back into the changing rooms.

"Dining hall for some breakfast. Wanna come with?" I offered. I would honestly feel more comfortable with her around then just being on my own.

"Sorry, I would come if I could though! I've got to keep on my brother today, part of his section is gone right noq and if someone isn't there to keep an eye on him he'll never get his work done! Plus, I've already had my breakfast."

"Oh, that's alright. I can handle by myself." I spoke, working on drying my body.

"Okay, do you need any directions?" she asked sweetly.

"No, I'll be okay. I'll just follow the scent of breakfast there." I said, now opening my locker as the Chinese girl giggled a bit.

"Alright, I'll be off then. Have a good day!" I watched as a fully clothed Lenalee skipped down the hall towards the door.

_Damn, she's quick._

…

I made my way pretty quickly down to the dining hall for breakfast, thankfully not getting lost. When I got down there it was about 10:00am, so the hall was fairly populated with mostly Finders and, from what I could see, maybe a few exorcists.

Thankfully there wasn't a line up for food. I wasn't too sure about what I should eat so I told Jerry to surprise me. He came up with a plate of freshly cooked waffles with a hefty amount of maple syrup and a few pieces of bacon on the side. I thanked the head chef for making the meal and set off to find myself a seat.

I contemplated sitting by myself, but decided against it. I remembered once reading something about how humans are social creatures and need social interactions to be healthy, so making new friends was what it was for me.

I looked out at the tables, which were mostly filled with large and small groups of Finders. It turned out that my last prediction to how many exorcists were in the room was wrong. There was only one, who I had caught a glimpse of for only a few moments.

From what I could see he had white hair and had what looked to be a golden golem sitting on the table with him, both of them practically inhaling the wide variety of breakfast foods that were laying out on their table. I thought about how uncanny it was to see someone eating that much food, but I just came to the conclusion that he had a big appetite. I decided he'd be the one I'd sit with.

I made my way to his table, and as I got closer I saw that he was a lot younger looking then I took him to be. Must have been the white hair that had thrown me off. He looked like he couldn't have been any older than 15.

"'Scuse me." I started, "You mind if I sit here?" I watched as he looked up at me, checks puffed up like he was a squirrel with nuts in his mouth. The white headed boy quickly swallowed his mouthful of food and nodded.

"Sure!" he spoke, giving me a wide smile. I gave him a smile in return and rearranged some plates to make room for myself. I set my plate down and sat across from him at the table.

We sat at the table for silence for some time before the boy decided to strike up a conversation,

"So, what's your name? I don't think I've seen you around here before, are you from another Branch?" he asked. I was kind of flattered that he actually stopped eating to talk to me when he was practically inhaling his food before.

"I'm Ryuzaki Toge, I'm a new exorcist here. It's nice to meet you." _Man_ I was getting kind of sick of saying that, I think I've said it enough to last me a lifetime at this point.

"I'm Allen Walker, it's a pleasure to meet you, Ryuzaki." He stood up out of his seat and held out a gloved hand for me to shake, his eyes lightly closed and mouth pressed into a warm smile. I felt my face heat up a bit as he stood there hand reaching out for a shake. Okay, he was cute, I'd admit that. I took his hand and shock it slightly, watching as he sat back down in his seat after our hands parted.

"So how long have you been at the Order for?" he asked, beginning to inhale his food again.

"A day." I said plainly.

"That explains why I haven't seen you around before." he spoke with a soft laugh.

"I guess." As I spoke I began to feel a light pressure on the top of my head. I pulled my hand up to grab whatever it was that landed on my head only to feel it crawl on my hand. I pulled my hand back down and saw that the little golden golem had come to sit comfortably on the back of my hand, his long swirl-tipped tail waving from side to side happily. I stared at him for a bit taking in what he looked like; long, bug-like feathery wings, tiny horns in front of said wings, and a cross-like shape on his face.

The more I stared at the little guy the more his little wings and tail would flap and swing from one to direction to the next. I found it… surprisingly cute.

"You're cute!" I told the little guy. He then instantly opened a little mouth that stretched from the left point of the cross on him to the right and let out a little growl, I guessed that was his way of saying 'Thank you'.

"That's Timcanpy." I heard Allen speak from across me.

"Is he your golem?"

"You could say that." I moved my hand to my shoulder so Timcanpy could sit there, he happily climbed onto it and sat snuggling into my neck a bit, I let out a chuckle as he did so. "He really likes girls. I hope he's not bothering you, I think he picked it up from his last master."

"No I don't mind, I think he's cute." I giggled a bit as Timcanpy made another little growl.

"Alright then." Allen smiled. It was at this point as I watched him eat that I noticed Allen had a large scar covering most of the left side of his face. I would have pushed it aside as something he might have picked up from a battle or two - I mean, I have my fair share of scars I've gotten from various activities - but his looked to geometrical to have come from a far swipe of a blade. Heck, the part of his scar that was on his forehead was shaped like an upside down five pointed star, that couldn't haven been so simple to carve into someones face.

"How'd you get the scar?" I saw fear flicker in his eyes for a moment before looking down at the floor which seemed to be more interesting to him at the moment. Now I felt bad for asking, I probably brought up some bad memories.

"I shouldn't have asked that." I felt a pinching pain on my ear lobe, "Oww!" I struggled a bit to look to my side when I saw a flash of gold from the corner of my eye indicating that it was probably Timcanpy that was chewing on my ear.

"No, bad Tim! You don't bit people!" I heard Allen shout, now giving a harsh glare at the little golden golem. The pain on my ear only got worse from there. "Oww! Timcanpy! What did I do? Whatever it is, I'm sorry!" After that Timcanpy stopped biting my ear and sat himself on my head.

"Ahh.. jeez Tim! I thought you were supposed to like girls! Sorry about that. He never bites people like-"

"No I should be the one to say sorry, you looked pretty beat up for me asking what your scar was." That needed to be said, honestly, I didn't think it would affect him that much just by bringing it up.

"No, it's okay, you didn't know." I guess he was just a bit self-conscious, he really shouldn't be though.

"Whatever you say then, cutie." I winked as I said that, he the proceeded to choke on the hard boiled egg he was eating. _He's gonna be fun to mess with._

While Allen was pounding his chest to save himself I felt someone's presence enter towards our table.

"Ummm.. e-excuse me?" I heard a somewhat familiar voice speak up, I turned around to see one of the scientists I had meet the other day standing beside me.

"Oh hey… ummm.." _Shit, I forgot his name._

"Johnny! J-Johnny Gill." He spoke for me, eyes wide behind round glasses.

"Right! What'cha need Johnny?" I asked, ignoring Allen at this point who was still wheezing on the other side of the table.

"K-Komui says he needs to see you in his office when you have time." The American boy stuttered.

"Okay, can you tell him I'll come up there after I'm finished my breakfast?"

"Sure!"

…

After I finished my breakfast, I set off to see Komui for whatever he had plans for. Allen decided to tag along as well, saying that he had pretty much nothing better to do, and that he wanted to talk to me a bit more. At this point, Allen and I were headed off to Komui's office.

"So cutie, how old are ya'?" I asked, he blushed at bit at the nickname that I had given him, which I had decided would be his nickname forever. He was cute when he blushed, after all.

"F-fifteen."

"Hmm…" I pulled out a pack of cigarettes from my pants and plucked out one for the pack placing it between my lips, "That's real young for an exorcist, I thought this was an adults job." I said, lighting my cigarette with the lighter I always had on me.

"I guess the Order takes whoever they can get, it's not your everyday job." I blew out some smoke away from Allen's direction, "How old are you Ryuzaki?"

"Seventeen." I said plainly.

"Well, you're not much older than me."

"That's true."I shrugged.

…

Once we got to Komui's paper covered office we found him, once again, napping over his mountain of work.

"I've got this," Allen said as he walked up to Komui and whispered something in his ear. I then witnessed another one of Komui's somehow normal freak outs until Allen let out a whole-hearted 'Just kidding'. After that, Komui calmed down a bit and sat back down at his desk.

"So, I see you got my message, Ryuzaki." the Chinese man spoke.

"Yup." I responded.

"And that you've made a friend in Mr. Walker."

"I guess you could say that, but I've only known him since breakfast. Anyways, what'd you bring me up here for?"

"I'd like to give you something." I watched as he pulled on one of the drawers on his desk and pulled something small and black out. It looked like he pressed something and shortly after two small, long, bat-like wings popped out of it and began to fly towards me.

"This is your golem from now on, I believe General Yeager explained to you what they're used for?" I looked at the little black golem flying in front of my face now, he was spherical in shape and had a large blue eye on his face that looked like a little target. He also had little horns poking out from his head.

"Yeah he explained them to me, thanks for the little guy though. I was wondering when I would get mine."

"It was only a matter of time Ryuzaki, but I did make sure that this model is up to date and functional. If you have any problems with it you can always take it to anyone in the science division and they'll be able to fix for you."

"I'll be sure to if he ever breaks."

"Well you're free to do whatever you feel for now. If you need anything don't be afraid to ask."

"Sure, sure."

…

The rest of my day was spent with Allen. He thought it would be nice to accompany me around for the day. I thanked him for that since he helped me around the Order for the day.

I spent a good time of the day at the Order's library. I found Lavi there studying some stuff, and also met who he called 'Gramps', though he punched him down and told me he was Bookman and that Lavi was his apprentice. For what he was an apprentice, he didn't tell me, and every time I tried to ask he would slap a hand over Lavi's mouth and tell me that he couldn't tell me. But whatever it was I was determined to find out… someday.

While at the library I ended up reading a little bit too much and missed lunchtime. When I was little I always really enjoyed reading and learning new things, which is the reason why I ask some many questions, even if does end up bad at times. I guess my liking for learning has stuck with me all these years and just never wanted to come off.

So after going to the dining hall for a late lunch and an after-meal smoke with Bookman, I decided to spend the rest of my day on the training floors. I trained on mostly a punching bag, working on the power of my kicks and punches I had learned in my many street fights.

That was until Serein decided to come sneak up on me.

"Hey Ryu!" I saw Serein pop her head from behind my punching bag. If she was trying to scare me, it was a nice try, but it was going to take a lot more than that.

"Oh, you're just in time girly. Mind holding the bag for me?" I asked, taking a breather as we talked.

"Sure! But can I ask you something first?" She grinned, before getting behind the bag and holding it by the bottom of the bag and its side.

"And what might that be Miss I-Jerk-off-to-Myself?" I said giving the bag a sloppy round kick.

"After you're done your training would you mind if I take you somewhere?" she spoke as I gave the bag a few jabs and punches.

"What do you mean by somewhere?" I huffed, "Like to town somewhere or what?"

"It'll be somewhere, don't worry." She giggled, reluctant to tell.

"Hey," I paused to take in a quick breath, "If there's free food I'll come with you anywhere."

"There'll be free food!" she sang.

"I'll be back."

…

I ended up taking a quick shower in the training floor's shower house. Then it didn't take me long to change into my spare change of clothes and begin to follow Serein to where ever she was taking me. Every time I tried to ask where we were going she only grinned happily and said, 'You'll see!'. I couldn't tell where we were going either since I'd only been at the Order a day and every fucking hall looked the same to me. She was way too happy about this, so whatever she had up her shirt better be pretty fucking awesome.

So we made our way through the Order, with me not knowing what the fuck was going on. I felt kind of left out of what the frick frack was happening but I supposed I'd find out soon enough.

But before I knew it we had made our way to the dining hall with its large wooden doors closed in front of me.

"Would you do the honors?" Serein spoke, gesturing towards the closed doors.

I rolled my eyes and push the two doors open.

"Welcome Home, Ryuzaki Toge."

…

AN: Well yay! Another chapter! And it didn't take TOO long this time! Though it ended up being 4337 words! Whoa! I'm really proud of this chapter though, it didn't take me to long to write but I think it came out really good. I hope I can keep up this kind of quality for the rest of the chapters.

I've had the idea for the scene were Ryuzaki meets Allen for the first time for a really long time so I was glad that I got to write it! I love Allen so much, he's my little baby, I just want to hug him so hard and tell him that I love him, but at the same time I really love Lavi too! What do I do?! (Threesome?)

Well, I'm really starting to have fun with writing this story! I just want to start working on chapter 6 already! I'll let you in on a little something here, Ryuzaki's gonna go on her first mission next chapter! But that's all you guys get to know! *Winks*

One other thing, I fixed up some formatting problems on chapters 3 and 4, so if you want to go back and look at those you can. I'll try to be better with my formatting in later chapter!

Anyways I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you in the next! Have a nice day, night, evening, whatever time you're at right now!

Best Wishes,

Shalcro~

…


	6. VI

…

VI

…

"Come on! You can punch harder than that Ryu!" Lavi spat out, before throwing as quick jab to my head. I moved my head to the right to dodge his jab and gave his side a hard round kick as a counter, getting a good "Ouff!' out of Lavi.

"My punches might not be strong, but my kicks sure as hell are!" I quickly gave him a firm side kick in the stomach, probably kicking the wind out of him. His body quickly found its way to the matted ground as the red-head let out a few good coughs.

I stepped up to his laying form and grinned.

"I got you good that time, didn't I?" I smirked.

"Hehe, yup!" Lavi huffed, I held out a hand for him, which he smiled at before quickly grasping it. I helped him back up to his feet.

I had been at the Order for a week then.. well, 6 days, to be exact. In that time I'd been able to get to know the few people I had already met better and even meet a few more. I spent most of my days either training, or spending time in the library.

I ended up being with Lavi most of the time though, it seemed to be just the way things worked out. He was a good guy to hang out with, too, so I didn't mind. We'd become good friends in that time, though. On my fourth day Lavi asked if I wanted to spar with him, I agreed, and we had a blast. We've been sparring once a day now, and I must have said it's great training. For his tall and thin structure he was surprisingly strong.

On my fifth day I got pretty bored so I decided to help out the science division. I thought that maybe if I hung around the weirdos of this place a bit maybe I'd get use to it quicker. What followed was a surprisingly normal start to me helping out. I mostly helped with carrying the large stacks of paperwork that never seemed to end and bringing people new hot cups of coffee. I guessed it was a more normal office then I first thought it out to be, but I felt like something odd could have happened at any moment while I was there.

"That's the first time you beat me Ryu!" the red-head remarked, taking off his bandana.

"I guess that's true!" Lavi had always been able to get a good punch or kick on me when I wasn't paying attention. We made our way to edge of the matted floor to get our water bottles for a quick drink. Lavi playfully tossed a towel my way and I used it to wipe off the sweat from my forehead.

"So, got any plans for later? I could always use help in the library." I paused for a moment to think about his offer.

"I don't think so. So, sure!" I smiled.

"Ahh, that's good to hear, I was hoping for your help anyways. Gramps just dumped a whole shitton of work on me." he sighed.

"I don't mind helpin' ya' out! You always teach me cool stuff 'bout history! But what kind of work are you even doing? I mean, Gramps never tells me, and every time you try to gramps is always there to stop ya'!" This fact had been pissing me off for a while now, every time I was with Lavi and tried to ask him whatever the fuck kind of work he was doing, Gramps would always be there to stop him.

Lavi quickly whipped his head from side to side, as to make sure no one was there.

"Well, you see, I'm a Bookman, our job is-"

"That'll be enough, stupid rabbit!"

See what I mean?!

"So close this time!" I retorted.

"So close!" Lavi added. I watched as Bookman took Lavi by the ear and began to drag him out of the room.

"Come on rabbit, Komui wants to see us." I laughed as Lavi struggled in Bookman's ear pinch and was dragged out of the room. As the Bookman dragging Lavi reached the doorway he stopped the looked back at me expectantly, "You too, Ryuzaki."

"Huh?" Bookman gave me an 'are you serious' look.

"Komui wants to see us all together."

"Oh, okay." I quickly caught up to the pathetic looking Lavi and Bookman and followed them out of the sparring room. Right as I as was about to close the door I caught a glimpse of something white out of the corner of my eye. For a second I thought it might have been Allen, but I didn't recall anyone else inside the room when me and Lavi were sparring.

I turned around and looked inside the room to see if anyone was there. Instead I just saw Theodore leaning against the far wall of the room.

"Something wrong Ryu?" I heard Lavi ask from behind me.

"I thought I saw something, must have just been my imagination messing with me."

"Whatever you say!" As he said that, I quickly ran back inside the room to get Theodore before running back after the two.

…

After Lavi and I had taken our own showers and got ready for the rest of our day, we set off to Komui's office to see what he had in store. I couldn't think of any ideas why he would need to see all three of us at once.

"So, why do you think Komui needs to see the three of us?" I asked as the said three of us waited for the lift to get to our needed floor.

"He's probably got a mission for us! I wonder where we'll be going this time~?" Lavi answered, grinning broadly.

"A mission? You mean like, going out, killing akuma, finding Innocence?"

"That's right, you haven't been on a mission before! But yes, that's pretty much what a mission is! Say, you've fought akuma before, right?"

"Yeah, I have. Before I joined the Order, akuma kept finding their way to me and I'd have to kill 'em. They never stopped coming though."

"They were probably trying to steal your Innocence." Lavi responded, gesturing to Theodore.

"The Earl seeks to destroy Innocence." Bookman continued, "From what we know he's the only one who can destroy Innocence, so he gets his akuma armies to obtain it for him."

"He probably found out you had Innocence and kept sending his akuma after it." Lavi finalized.

"Well, that makes sense now." I had been wondering why those akuma never seemed to stop coming, "Well, I'm glad that I get to go on my first mission with someone I know!"

"Awww! That's sweet Ryu! Don't worry, I'll take good care of you!"

"Hey! I would have been able to handle it on my own!"

"Come on Ryu!" He quickly swung his arm around my neck, "You'll be fine with us! No worries!" And beside us two teens, Bookman sighed.

…

"Hey Ryu! Why did you ask some many questions back at the mission briefing? I didn't think you'd do that." I heard Lavi speak from the seat beside me. We were on a train on our way to north England for our mission.

From what Komui told us, there was a golden-furred wolf running around out there that was calling a lot of hunters to the area. The finders in the area started seeing more akuma then usual and suspected there to be Innocence in the area, most likely the so called golden-furred wolf. Komui suspected the wolf to have somehow gotten the Innocence inside of it, which was hypothetically what turned its fur gold.

At first I didn't believe Komui - I mean, how could a golden-furred wolf exist? It could have just have been someone imagination playing tricks on them. But after hearing about fourteen different stories about how Innocence can pretty much make anything happen, I just gave up trying to resist.

"I'll always been the type of person that needs to know everything." I answered, taking my cigarette out of my mouth to blow some smoke out of the trains.

Turns out the Black Order is a pretty money-filled place and ended up getting us a first class seat on the train. Lavi and Bookman said it was a normal thing to ride first class, supporters of the Order were everywhere and gave discounts and the such on whatever that supporter was. One of those supporters just happened to be someone in the train business and let us have free seats all the time. Talk about awesome.

I never would have dreamed of ever riding first class on a train, or in any kind of transportation for that matter. I was so broke out on my own that I usually snunk on the cargo carts of the trains to get around. I never got caught, mostly because I did it only on really long trips with few places in between. I walked most places anyways.

"I'm surprised you're not bothered by my smoking. Most people are." I said, trying to keep our conversation going.

"Oh no! I'm used to it! Gramps has always smoked a lot so I got used to it pretty quick."

"Well that's good. Most people are put off by a girl smoking. They think it's 'unlady-like'. Which is bullshit by the way, I can do anything I want." I spoke, disgusted that I had to bring up that again. I let out a sigh before looking over to Lavi again, "But promise me you'll never smoke. It's a terrible and costly thing to do, and I wouldn't want you to get caught up in it."

"But you just said you do what you like? What's so bad about smoking?"

"There are a lot of things that make it bad, but the worst is that once you start, you can't stop. And frankly it's stopped me from doing things I've wanted to do." I paused for a moment recalling some memories, "So, don't smoke, okay?"

"Okay then Ryu!" Lavi shouted happily the wrapping his arms around me for a quick hug. I was a bit shocked that he agreed so quickly, but I guess that's just him. I let him hug me for however long he liked not struggling in the least. What I've learn from this past week is that Lavi's hugs are like quicksand. The more you struggle, the tighter it gets.

I ruffed his hair a bit right before he let go of me. That's a bad habit I've always had. I tend to mistake humans for cats sometimes. Lavi giggled a bit as I did that and placed a peck of a kiss on my cheek after our hug broke.

Okay, let's just say all of Lavi is like quicksand. Most girls would push him off and call him a playboy, but if you just let him do what he wants he'll leave you alone, like quicksand.

I was glad Bookman was somewhere else at the moment, if he saw that he'd probably first, punch and or kick Lavi in the balls or some other area that would hurt, second, yell at Lavi for breaking their rules, and third, yell at me for letting him do such a thing to me.

"Hey Lavi, where's Bookman?" I asked out of curiosity.

"He's probably off having a smoke or something. Maybe wandering around the train. I don't know." He shrugged.

"Alright then."

…

A little while pasted as we road in the trains empty room. Lavi would ask questions every so often, most about trivial stuff, like, 'When's your birthday?' or 'What's your favourite colour?'. It seemed like Lavi was trying to get to know me better, but he's been always asking me questions ever since the first time we really hung out together.

I thought it was just him being himself at first - I mean, he is a pretty talkative person, and heck even I am too if you can find something I'm interested in - but after I while I couldn't help but find it a bit creepy. Each question he asked seemed like he was trying to dig deeper and deeper into my mind. I answered most of his questions, but even when I denied him an answer he would always say 'You don't have to answer if you don't want to!' and go on to the next question.

I didn't really know what he was doing, or if he'd ever stop doing it. I would like to think he would someday, or at least tell me what he was doing. One thing I did notice about him was that he never asked the same question twice. I just assumed he had a really good memory for things like that.

"Hey Ryu!" I hear Lavi say beside me.

"What's up?"

"Could you face the window for a second?"

Uh. Why would he want me to do that?

"Why?" I asked, a bit confused,

"Just do it, okay!" He said, giving me one of his goofy grins. I couldn't help but think they were cute. Regardless, I did as he asked and turned to face the window, that way my back was towards him. I heard him shuffle a bit in his seat.

"Now don't turn your head Ryu. Just keep lookin' forward!" he cheered.

"Okay then." I felt the small white ribbon I used to keep my hair up being pulled undone, and it was pretty obvious to me that he was going to be playing with my hair.

I felt him run his fingers threw my hair which sent a quiver down my spine.

"Your hair is really soft, Ryu!"

"Thanks… I guess." I heard Lavi let out a small snicker before I felt my hair being pulled lightly into different strands. He tugged a bit hard a few times before I felt the bottom of my hair being tied with the same small white ribbon I used. He then flopped my hair over my shoulder for me to see that he had done it up in a neat, tight braid. I turned back to him holding my hair in my hands, marveling a bit at how good he was at braiding hair.

"Thank you. I never would've guessed you'd be so good at that."

"Hehe, I use to braid Gramps hair as a joke a lot when I was younger. I guess I just got good at it after a while. Say, why'd you grow your hair out so long? Doesn't it get in the way?" _Here we go with the questions again..._

"When I was younger my mom always cut my hair for me. After I left home I never had anyone to cut my hair for me, and I was afraid if I cut my own hair, I'd end up making it look bad, so I just decided to grow it out."

"Ahh, that makes sense, and you're welcome!"

…

I heard the small room's sliding door open a bit and looked up to see the Old Panda walking inside.

"Hello." He spoke somewhat too loud for the other little girly in the room. I quickly shushed him.

"Shh! Ryu's sleeping!" It was true, little Ryu had fallen asleep very cutely on my shoulder about a hour ago. I had to resist calling out my usual 'STRIKE!' when she did. The Old Gezer just gave a slight 'Hmm.' before sitting on the seat across from us, "Do you know how much longer until we get there?" I asked, arching my eyebrow lightly.

"I believe about another hour or so." he respectfully said, no higher then a whisper. Though he never talked too loud to anyone anyways, he was rather respectful when it came to people other than me.

Some time passed as I continued with what I was doing before, which just happened to be stroking Ryu's head softly as she slept peacefully. That was until Bookman spoke up.

"I'm disappointed in you, Lavi." He spoke, voice still in a whisper. I hadn't noticed he'd been staring at me stroking Ryu the whole time, I had figured he'd be looking out the window or something, I gave a small chuckle, trying not to move Ryu from her stop curled up on my shoulder, "You know you're not suppose to make bonds with other people." _Oh, crap, he's getting serious now._

"I know that." I whispered, a tinge of sad bitterness leaking into my voice.

"You know it's only going to hurt you in the future."

"I know that!" I repeated a little too loudly. Ryu stirred a bit in her slumber at that but thankfully didn't wake up, "You told me this every time I met someone new at the Order! 'Lavi's' only an act! You know that!"

"The way you act around her makes me think otherwise. Same with the others, Serein Trouvaille, Yuu Kanda, to name a few." I sighed, looking at Ryu's sleeping face instead of making eye contact.

The job of a Bookman is to record the secret history that would most likely be forgotten without us. Part of that job is not to make bonds with other humans. But that's the problem, humans can't _not_ make bonds. Just by saying 'Hello.' to someone is forming a bond, if you like it that way or not.

Becoming a Bookman was my decision, and I have to take on the responsibilities, even if they hurt me. Ever since I came to the Order, I've been finding it harder and harder to keep myself from bonding. I've been having to remind myself more and more not to do it, but when you're around the same people 24/7 its hard not to.

"The 'Lavi' I created just happens to be a friendly person." I tried to cover it up, but Bookman just looked at me questioningly.

"Tell me why we're at the Order." _Shit, not this again._ I sighed softly,

"We came to the Order to record the secret history involving the exorcists." I stated.

"Good. Once we get back to the Order you've got my next's weeks work to do." I sighed. Goddammit.

…

AN: Well I didn't expect to end off that chapter so quick, but it was already at around 3000 words so it needed to end. I was thinking of having the whole mission in one chapter, but once I realized it was getting a bit to long, I felt it would have been a bit to overwhelming to have a chapter probably around 6000-7000+ words when most of my chapters are around 4000+ at the longest.

When I first started writing this chapter I was kind of having a hard time determining would Ryuzaki should go on her first mission with. I was thinking Serein, because I kind of wanted a bit more of her in the story, but IDK why I tossed that idea. I also thought about being a bit of a dick and putting her with Kanda because I didn't have a introduction for Kanda planned at the time, but I decided against that one too because, one, I don't think Komui would be so mean as to put someone with Kanda on their first mission and leave a bit of a sour taste in their mouths for not only mission, but also Komui, and two, I know have a another plan for Kanda intro so YAYS! That should come up after this whole mission is done with, which I hope will be next chapter!

Next chapter should take a little longer then normal though if I want to wrap up the whole mission in one chapter. I mean they haven't even started their mission yet! And I don't plan on rushing the chapter either. But I don't have much planned for the mission anyways, so I think I'll get it done, at least, soon enough.

Please feel free to leave a review if you want to tell me something, give me advice, or if you have questions. I don't bite! Really! Every review just makes me more motivated to write more!

Anyways that's all I got for you guys today! Sorry for the super long AN.

Best Wishes,

Shalcro~

…

I've been told I should put my own notes in here as well. So, hello, I'm Shalcro's beta reader! I'll go by Blizz~!

I didn't think she'd keep writing this, I honestly expected her to get bored of it after the first few chapter. I'm pretty impressed with her~~

I must apologize for the delays lately, it's not her fault. I've been having difficulty getting to a computer to go through her chapters [she's actually already done 7, I still have to read that too ヽ（゜ロ゜；）ノ ], so I've been holding it back a bit. I'm very sorry!

Hopefully I'll be able to be online more often for this, I feel bad for not being able to.

I don't really have much to say at the moment, so I'll cut off here so you can get on chapter 7 [assuming it's up ;3].

~ Blizz

ヽ（゜ロ゜；）ノ

ヽ（゜ロ゜；）ノ

…


	7. VII

…

AN: I just want to say something quickly before this chapter starts. If you guys are wondering when this story is supposed to take place in the series I'd say right now it's shortly before the Miranda Arc.

I have a feeling there's got to be at least maybe 2 weeks to a month inbetween story arcs. So at this point, Lavi hasn't met Allen yet, since Allen meets Lavi right at the end of the Miranda Arc.

I'm going to try my hardest to follow the manga/anime as close as possible so people don't get confused.

I'm also planning for this story to end around the end of the animes season 2. Or right around the point where Allen leaves to find Cross again. Or the start of the whole Asia journey Arc.

I'm not sure how many chapters this will end up being since my ideas are all over the place at this point, but I do have a lot planned. I'm hoping for about 20-30 chapters, but I come up with new ideas almost every day, so I still have no idea.

That's all I got to say, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Now! On with the chapter!

…

VII

…

"Ryu! Hey Ryu! Kitty cat! Girly!" I heard Lavi voice speak beside me. _I'm still tired._I thought, "Come on cutie pie! We're at the train station!" I let out a small huff and slowly opened up my eyes. I looked to see Lavi standing in the sliding doors doorway. "That's a good girl, now come on! We got a mission to get to!" he said, giving me one of his silly grins.

I reluctantly stood up, stretching my arms above my head and letting out a loud yaw.

"Sorry, did I fall asleep?" I asked, quickly grabbing Theodore and strapping him around my shoulder. Lavi and I quickly made our way out of the small room.

"Yeah you did! On my shoulder too, you're really cute when you're sleepin'!" He said patting me on my head lightly. I couldn't help but blush, I just had to fall asleep on his shoulder didn't I? I looked to the floor and let out some curses under my breath, "Hey! It ain't nothin' to be ashamed of! You need your sleep don't you?!" Okay, that made me feel a bit better, but I knew he'd never let this up.

"But still, you were really cute! That'd be 'kawaii' in Japanese, right?"

"Uhh, yeah. Why?" I asked, as we walked down the train carts ramp into the station.

"I was just wondering. I thought I'd check up on my Japanese. I wanna be able to talk to you in your home language!"

"That's real nice of ya', but I'd honestly speak English instead." I replied. I saw Gramps join us beside Lavi suddenly, I guess he was waiting for us. Lavi put his hands behind his head in a relaxed manner.

"Aww! Why's that Ryu!?" he asked.

"Well, one, this is England, they speak English here, and two, I honestly can't remember much Japanese." Lavi looked at me questioningly.

"Why's that? I thought you were from Japan?" I sighed, deciding to pick out a smoke from my pocket.

"Well my Dad was, I grew up in southern England. My Dad taught me Japanese and I only spoke it with him, sometimes with my brother too. But I've never been to Japan before and I don't plan on going anytime soon." I said lighting my cigarette, "I haven't spoken Japanese sense the last time I was at home, which was around three years ago. If I try to speak it again I'd probably make such an idiot of myself that you'd probably use it for blackmail." I spat.

"Hey! Come on! You can't be that bad! Translate what I say into Japanese and I'll tell you how good it is!" he said, clapping his hands together brightly.

"As long as you don't use it for blackmail." I said blowing some smoke in his face, just so he got the motto. He surprisingly did nothing of it and continued to smile, I guess Gramps did that to him too.

"Like I would anyways." I chuckled at that.

"Ohhh! I know you would."

"Whatever. So here, translate this, 'Will you have sex with me?'" I heard Gramps face palm from beside him. _He_really_went there?_

"Like I'd translate that." I spat, blowing smoke at his face again, this time as punishment.

"Aww! Came on Ryu! All you gotta do is say it! I'll help you translate it if you like!"

"Nope, this conversation is over, you stupid hentai!"

"See! You said something in Japanese there! And that was proper too! Come on, all you gotta do is say one line! One litt-"

"I already said this conversation was over, _Lavi Bookman Jr_." I pushed the lit end of my cigarette to his cheek for good measure. He instantly, jumped back and let out a rather girly 'Eeek!' while doing so, I laughed, "Anyways, where are we? I wasn't paying attention." I looked around a bit at our surroundings. There seemed to be a lot of stands up, selling mostly guns, hunting gear, you name it. It was probably because of the golden-furred fox. Gun makers and the such probably saw this as an opportunity to sell more of their goods.

"This is the town closest to where the fox was last spotted." Bookman quickly stated.

"So what should we do now?" I heard Lavi who was holding his now probably burnt cheek, ask, "Should we find a place to stay or should we go out lookin' for the fox first?"

"The faster we get this mission done the better! I say we go out lookin' for that damn wolf!" I spoke blowing out some more smoke.

"Ryuzaki Toge has a point, we could finish this mission in a day if we use the right strategy."

"Really?! That'd be nice to go home right away. Then I can sleep all I want again!" I sighed happily.

"Only if it's with me!" Lavi spoke quickly with a grin.

"Do you wanna get burnt again?" I smirked, raising an eyebrow.

"No…"

"Good boy," I ruffed his hair, "Now come on, let's go find that wolf!"

…

"So, how do we go about this Gramps?" I asked, looking out into the large forest opening in front of us, "Should we split up?"

"Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"There's no telling what _he'll_ do on his own."

"Right…' I spoke, taking my first steps into the forest, "From what I know wolves travel in packs… aaaannnnd that's all I know." _Damn it, I made an idiot of myself again._

"Well, I guess our best plan would be to walk around the forest and see if we can find any akuma." I heard Lavi step up beside me, chin in his hands, looking like he was thinking.

"Akuma? Why should we be lookin' for akuma? I thought we were lookin' for the Innocence!" I said, looking up to the thinking red-head in confusion.

"Well, you see," He slapped his hands on his cheeks and pushed them together so his face looked like that of a fish, "Akuma are better at finding Innocence than humans are. The science division thinks they might have some sort of inner tracker, but that hasn't been confirmed yet." He let out huff before looking at me, hands still pressed to his cheeks, and still looking like a fish, "If that's true, then if we find akuma, that might mean we're closer to the Innocence." I couldn't help but try and hold back a laugh as he talked, his face looked too stupid. I couldn't help it, and ended up letting out a laugh, "Ehh! I made you laugh! Your laugh is so cute!"

I only laughed harder as he continued to make silly faces at me. I know it was childish, but it just happened to make me laugh this time. That was until I noticed an absence of a certain Old Panda.

"Hey, where'd Gramps go?" I looked to my left only to see him walking down into the forest without us.

"Shit! Gramps! Wait up!"

…

"You two are too childish for my own good." I heard Gramps grumble beside me and Lavi. We had been walking around this forest for about 10 minutes now and hadn't found anything yet, which made sense.

"It's not me that's childish, it's Lavi!"

"Hey! I'm not childish! I'm just… uhhhh.."

"Come on! You know you are you rabbit!"

"He just needs to grow up." I heard Bookman retort.

"Hey! He doesn't need to grow up, he can act whatever the way he likes, Lavi just needs to know it'll get him in trouble at times."

"Yeah!" I heard Lavi cheer from behind me. Gramps just let out a 'Che!' as we continued to walk through the forest.

…

_Bang!_

_Bang! Bang bang!_

"What's that!" I squeaked.

"Gunshots! I know them all too well. Now get down!" I heard Gramps command. I watched Lavi find his way behind a bush with Gramps quickly following. I just stood there as they hid.

"Come on Ryu! Get down!" Lavi whispered angrily.

"Why? It's probably just a hunter, there's got to be tons of them around."

"Those were akuma gunshots, you fool!" Gramps spoke in the same tone as Lavi did before.

"Yeah, now get down!" I realized there was probably no convincing the two, so I jumped behind the bush with the two dorks.

"How could you even tell they were akuma shots?"

"They have a very distinctive sound, but that doesn't matter right now! Look!" Lavi spoke from beside me. _I'll have to figure that out for myself._

Regardless, I looked out from the bush only see a rather mechanical looking scorpion. It was at least 14 feet tall, and on the tip of its tail seemed to be a cannon instead of a stinger. I was guessing it was an akuma, I mean it still had the same human like face with the large upside-down star on its forehead, but I had never seen an akuma like this before. But what really caught my attention was the golden coloured wolf squirming in the akuma-scorpions pinchers. Not to mention it had at least ten other, I guess, 'normal' ones following behind it.

"There it is!" I said a little too loudly. That's when the akuma-scorpion turns its attention to the bush we were hiding behind.

"God damn it Ryu! You had one job!" (#SorryNotSorry.) Lavi yelled, springing up from behind the bush. Gramps let out a sigh as he stood up too. Guess there was no point in hiding anymore.

"Exorcists! The Earl will be proud if I kill you! Yes, very proud!" the akuma spoke, loading its cannon on it tail and beginning to shoot. Lavi and I quickly jumped to the left behind a tree, and Gramps disappeared to God knows where.

"Ryuzaki, listen to me!" Lavi yelled over the gunshots. I nodded to show I was paying attention, "Gramps and I will distract the Level 2 akuma and get the Innocence from it. While we're doing that you take out the Level 1's behind it. Got it?"

"Wait! What do you mean by Level 1's and 2's, are you telling me akuma can evolve?" I asked, feeling the rumbling of the ground around us as the shots hit the ground.

"Yes they can! And no offense, but you're not strong enough to take out a Level 2 yet! Now, do you understand!?" He yelled, I quickly drew Theodore from his sheath and flashed Lavi a grin.

"You bet I do!" I grinned.

"That's my girl! Now get to it!" He playfully punched my shoulder before running off to his right. Now on my own I looked out to my left, only to see _a lot_ more the just ten Level 1 akuma.

I hide myself back behind the tree again wondering how I was going to go about this.

_What should I do, damnit!? They're pretty high up, how am I going to cut them from down here? Last time I checked humans don't have wings…_

"You could always climb the trees." I heard a voice say. I quickly looked around only to see there was no one around. It was weird, the voice, I'd never heard it before, it certainly wasn't Lavi's, not Bookmans either. I could barely hear their voices over the sound of the akuma gunshots. It sounded almost too manly for Lavi, and certainly wasn't the voice of a heavy smoker like Bookman. But then wasn't the time to be thinking about who said it; whoever it was, they just gave me a great idea.

I toke the voice's advice, which I came to the conclusion was just my brain playing tricks on me, slipped Theodore back into his sheath and began to climb the tree I was hiding behind. It was kind of hard to get on the truck on the tree without any kind of climbing gear on me - I'd have to remind myself to buy some daggers with my next paycheck. Regardless, I managed to get high enough to reach some branches.

I pulled myself up with the little upper body strength I had and perched myself just high enough so that I could probably jump onto the Level 1's heads and kill them from there. But first I looked out to my surroundings.

About 15 feet below me were Lavi and Bookman fighting the Level 2. This was the first time I had seen either of them fighting akuma. Lavi had told me his anti-akuma weapon was a hammer but I never thought it'd be that big. It was almost half the size of the Level 2, and that thing was pretty fucking big. I couldn't really see what Bookman was doing but they looked like they were both fighting hard.

_Might as well get to it then!_ I drew Theodore from his sheath once again and jumped my way out of the branches onto the nearest Level 1 and stabbing Theodore down inside it, jumping over to the next and repeating the process. The akuma quickly caught on to what I was doing and began to shoot at me.

I knew Theodore's blade was too thin to deflect or even stop the akuma bullets so I was forced to jump back into the trees. As I jumped into the trees I felt a rather sharp branch scrape across my forehead and continue into a cut. Warm liquid which I assumed was blood began to trickle down my left face and got caught into my bangs. I cursed under my breath and I held my hand to the cut to try and stop the bleeding.

At the time it was the best I could do. I stayed dead quiet as I looked out behind the branches for the trees. I had taken out no more then maybe 3 akuma and I've already had to retreat. That's the problem with my Innocence, it requires two hands to use, if I have to use one hand to stop myself from bleeding out, then I was pretty much useless. I could try throwing Theodore at them, but one, he's heavy, and wouldn't fly very far with the weak throw I'd be able to produce, and two, if I did throw him, and he somehow hit an akuma, it would fall to the ground leaving me to get down somehow and whatever, you know the rest.

_Shit! What I'm I gonna do? I could ask Lavi or Gramps for backup, but they're busy enough with trying to get that damned wolf from the level two. Damn it, damn it, damn it!_

The most I could then was just sit and hope the akuma thought I was already dead. But Lavi and Bookman were counting on me to kill all these akuma, so I had to do it. I wouldn't want to disappoint them, now would I?

I poked my head out of the branches to see the akuma had forgotten me and began to attack the pair of exorcists below. Seeing as that my plan, that wasn't really a plan, of just going in and trying to kill them all at once hadn't worked, I decided to play it stealth mode, taking out one at a time and preventing as many injuries as possible.

I put up the hood on my coat to blend in with the darkly shaded trees, hoping I wouldn't stick out to much with the sun that had already started to set, painting the landscape around us a warmly coloured orange.

I climbed down a few branches and decided to start with the front row of akuma that served as the biggest threat to Lavi and Gramps below, from there I'd move back and take out the rows behind. Holding Theodore's hilt as tightly as possible I gave myself a quick countdown,

"San… ni…" I took in a deep breath, "Ichi!" I jumped out of the branches as quickly as I could onto the closest akuma. This time, I gave each akuma in the front line quick gashes instead of a full on stab, it didn't mean an instant kill, but it was faster and less dangerous.

I ended up killing 4 akuma and injuring another that it could be killed with at least another swipe. I wasn't seen thankfully and I retreated back into the trees to wait for the next best time to attack.

I repeated this process at least 3 times killing around 3 to 4 akuma each time. I wasn't as effective, but it was better then getting hurt again like I so carelessly did before, and I had eliminated a pretty good amount of the threat that was facing Lavi and Bookman.

I was waiting for my 6th time out when I heard someone speak to me,

"Hey girly, need some help?" It was Lavi's voice and he seemed to be pushing some of the branches that were covering me up out of the way to see me,

"Lavi! What are you doing up here! Don't you need to deal with the Level 2!?" I shouted, "And you're going to blow my cover!"

"Calm down Ryu! We managed to get the wolfy away from the Akuma and Bookman's protecting it right now. I thought you might need some help destroying these things, there are a lot of 'em."

"Alright fine, but not to much, I could have handled these on my own if you gave me time." I held out my hand and Lavi quickly grabbed my wrist and pulled me up close, his hammer's handle seemed to be able to extend at will, it as pretty cool if you asked me.

Lavi used one arm to hold onto to me and the other on his hammer,

"Extend!" He yelled, his hammer's handle began to extend at fast rates as we moved closer to the small akuma army. I held Theodore out with one hand as we passed by each of the akuma. I felt each cut as it swiped threw their mechanical skin, "Good idea Ryu!" Lavi shouted as we proceeded with our plan. We ended up killing a good portion of the akuma this way ,only leaving a few of the Level 1's.

As we kept moving Lavi asked, "You think you can handle the last of 'em on your own?" I gave him a firm nod before he dropped me off on a nearby tree. I decided to take my time killing off the last few Level 1's, killing them each with one hit. This was an easy task seeing as that there was only 4 of them left.

I gave each of them a good stab with avoiding their huge bullets knowing they'd hurt pretty bad if I got hit. On the last akuma, I stabbed its head but left Theodore inside it so it wouldn't blow but just fall to the ground.

It fell fairly quickly and I had to pull Theodore out of it real quick and get out of the way before it blew. I got caught in a bit of the shock wave it caused and pushed me forward good enough to knock me down. I put my hands out in front of me in just in time to break my fall and push myself up quickly.

I had to get away from all the akuma corpses though, the gas they emit when they die is toxic to humans and can make you faint, or at least that was what Komui told me. I quickly began to run into the direction were Lavi and Bookman were fighting the Level two with my coats sleeve up at my mouth to filter the air. Though once I got there, it wasn't such a great sight to see.

The Level 2 akuma was in fact, still alive and was attacking a sphere completely made up of needles, I wasn't sure what it was, but I figured it to be Bookman, Lavi said was protecting the innocence wolf. Speaking of Lavi, I wondered where he was, shouldn't he be fighting the Level 2?

That was until I saw him laying against a tree, most likely unconscious. Worry instantly filled my mind as I dropped Theodore and ran towards him,

"Lavi!" I shouted, as I ran to him. Once I got there I pulled him up so I was holding him upright, "Shit, shit, shit, shit! Please still be alive! What happened?" I quickly pressed two fingers to the side of his neck to thankfully still feel a strong pulse. _He must have only been knocked out a few moments ago._I thought.

Seeing as that he was in no real condition to fight being covered in scratches and from the looks of it having a pretty good gash on his upper right leg, I pulled him behind the tree I had found him against. I hoped he'd be okay, which seemed pretty likely since his wounds weren't very life threatening. I left him there and decided to face the Level two myself since no one else could.

I stepped back out into the battlefield spiting some blood out of mouth before picking up Theodore,

"Hey, fuckface!" The akuma turned around.

"Ehehe, me?" it asked, now forgetting about the needle sphere that probably was Bookman and the wolf.

"Yeah you, who else would I be talking about?! I killed all your other friends after all." I gestured to the akuma graveyard behind me.

"Ehehe, oh those-"

"Whatever it is I don't want to hear it. Do you think you're some all mighty being just because you have some cool powers?"

"Yes I-"

"No you're not. You've killed a lot of people probably, and are a disgrace to this Earth." I pointed Theodore straight at him, "You are an akuma, nothing more then a living piece of shit that does nothing but kill." I took in a deep breath, "I am an exorcist! My job is to rid the world of trash like you!" I yelled.

"Innocence! Activate!" The blades on the side of Theodore's hilt began to spin and I felt the sensation I had felt before. The power of the Innocence running through my body, I took it all in, trying my hardest to activate with the most power. It felt like all this energy was going to one part of my body before running through the rest of it. I felt _alive_.

I ran towards the akuma at full speed, the adrenaline and sense of fear pushing me to go faster. Then, the fight was on.

My first target was its tail, it was the biggest threat to me right now. I heard it load its tail-cannon and begin to shoot. I jumped out of the way running as fast as I could to get behind this thing. I first tried to swipe off its tail with a clean cut only for Theodore to fling off of it. _Damn it! There goes that plan! I guess what Lavi said was true, I'm not strong enough to kill a Level 2 yet, but Lavi is right. I'll just hold it back till he wakes up again._

That was true, if I was strong enough, Theodore would have been able to cut through its skin with ease, just like with the Level 1s.

"You could always get it to kill itself." There it was again! That voice! It was louder, more clear this time. I knew already that it wasn't Bookman or Lavi. Lavi was unconscious, and Bookman, protecting the Innocence. It was too clear and loud to ignore this time, and this time I could strongly confirm it wasn't one of the two's voices. As much I wanted to think it was fake and just my head pulling strings to get me to think straight, I couldn't ignore it. I'd have to investigate what it was later, it had, again, given me a great idea on how to end this fight for Innocence. How I was going to go about it, was another question waiting to be answered.

Making my way towards the edge of the trail I hid behind a boulder to catch my breath. I need to do this often, though, it's probably because I smoke to much.

_How am I going to do this, what the fuck the voice was told me to get it to kill itself, but how am I going to do that? It does have pinchers like a real scorpion, but I doubt it could kill itself with them. It has a canon though, wait… that's it!_

With my new found idea I took a few more quick moments to catch my ever running out breath. I slipped Theodore back into his sheath, he wouldn't be needed for my plan. I ran out into the open battlefield and yelled.

"Hey, fuckface!" I yelled, trying to get the Level 2s attention. It was looking around frantically, probably confused as to where I went before.

"There you are!" it shouted, it loaded its tail-canon and began to shoot my way. I moved out of the way for each bullet. As I stepped closer and closer to the akuma, I could feel the anger raising in the air. I got as close as I could then quickly ran around to the back of the akuma.

I grabbed on to the akumas tail, thankful that its flat human like face couldn't see what I was doing. I climbed up its tail using the spines on the side till I got to the tip. I then yelled, "Hey fuckface! Behind ya'!"

It quickly turned around and I could feel the bullet being loaded in its cannon. And that was the precise moment of this plan. I waited for the moment right before it fired then jumped and pushed down with all my weight on its tip causing a large cracking sound followed by the gunfire as it shot itself in the back.

What ended up only being a few moments felt like hours to me, and because of me not thinking past this, I fell backwards off its tail right after it shot itself, colliding with the cold, hard ground.

…

"You think she's gonna be alright Gramps?" I heard Lavi's voice fill the air as I regained my consciousness.

"She'll be fine, I did as much as I could but she needs to see a real doctor. She needs stitches, which I don't have the materials for right now." Bookman spoke next, I opened my heavy eyes and tried to sit up, only to be overcome with a strong pain in my left arm.

"Oowww!" I sneered, as I fell back onto the ground clenching my hurting arm. _What happened? Did I hurt my arm somehow?_

"Ryu!" I heard Lavi say, I couldn't tell if he was relieved or worried. He quickly ran over to me and helped me sit up, him holding my back up and I clenched my still hurting arm, "You hurt your arm! Don't try and sit up! You'll only make it worse."

"Ow ow owow! Okay! I… I got it. What happened, how'd I hurt my arm?" I asked. I mean, I certainly don't remember getting cut so bad.

"You were like this when I woke up. I don't know how you got this way." He said,

"Oh… Wait is the Level 2 dead? Did I kill it?" I asked.

"Yeah it's dead. I guess I underestimated your strength, you got that guy good! How'd you destroy it anyways?"

"I actually didn't use any Innocence, I made it use the cannon on its tail to kill itself, I think I remember falling after it shot itself and I guess that's how I ended up unconscious. Maybe I got the cut on my arm on the fall down, 'cause I don't remember getting this cut when I was fighting it."

"Wait! You fought it yourself!? Even though you knew you weren't strong enough!" He shouted, almost angry about what I did.

"Well what was I supposed to do?!" I yelled back, watching as Lavi face turned from anger to shock, now I felt bad, I sighed before continuing, "You were unconscious Lavi, and Bookman was protecting the Innocence! I had to fight! Or both of you would have been killed." Lavi sighed before answering.

"Well you're lucky that you came up with such a clever idea, it ended up saving us all. But you still shouldn't have done that!" He huffed, I thought about telling him about telling him that it wasn't really me that came up with idea for the akuma to kill itself. But if I told him some weird voice in my head told me, would he really believe me? Probably not.

"Yeah…" was I all I said before Lavi gave me a grin.

"Well just don't do it again, okay!" I smiled at his quick change of mood,

"Okay... but what about the Innocence!? Is it okay?" I asked, worried about the one thing that we came here for, that's also when I noticed a certain absence of a sheath, and coat for that matter too, "And where's Theodore! Did the akuma take him! Please don't tell me the akuma took him! He mea-"

"Whoa whoa! Slow down girl! Who's Theodore?" Oh that's right, I hadn't told him that my sword has a name, and shit, I was also letting my frantic side show. I'm actually a person who worries about everything, that's why I always ask tons of questions and need to know every little detail, so I don't worry about it later. I guess I let it show a bit.

"Theodore's my anti-akuma weapon." I answered a bit embarrassed.

"Oh, you named your anti-akuma weapon?" he asked, tilting his head a bit.

"No, it's the name he came with! And frankly, he's really important to me! Without him I'd probably be dead!"

"You talk about Theodore like it's a living thing. You know it's just a sword, right!" I felt my face flush up in embarrassment.

"Theodore's not just a sword! He's… he's… my friend okay. He's been my friend for a long time!" As I said that Lavi looked like he was trying really hard to hold in a laugh, not long after letting it out.

"You… you… consider a _sword_ a… a friend?" He said between laughs,

"Laugh any longer, and your ass is going to say hello to my little 'friend.' who actually isn't very, 'little.'" Lavi just kept on laughing mumbling the words, 'sword friend.' every so often, before laughing harder again. He didn't stop till I took out my lighter and threatened to set his hair on fire. After that he helped me up and we caught up to Gramps to see him looking down at an unconscious golden-furred wolf, just what we came here for.

"So, you figure anything out Gramps?" Lavi asked.

"Anything about what?" I asked Lavi back.

"About how to get the Innocence out of the wolf." I began to think for an idea.

"Well how long ago did the whole rumor about the golden-furred wolf come about?" I asked.

"About 5 weeks ago." I heard Gramps answer, I thought harder hoping to come up with some kind of idea.

"What if the wolf ate the Innocence?" I heard Lavi say, "Maybe it ate another animal that had the innocence inside it? That's possible."

"Yeah! Maybe the Innocence is still inside its stomach! That way, if it is we could just get it to vomit it out!" I thought out loud.

"Or we could just cut it open." Lavi stated blandly.

"Hey! That'd kill it! That wolf is a living thing! It should be able to live on!" I said in the animals defense.

"That's coming from the person who considers a sword a friend!"

"You wanna be bald?" Lavi silenced himself rather quickly, "Is there anyway you could make it vomit Gramps?" I asked, not wanting to kill the wolf.

"I know how to make a human vomit, but I'm not so sure about a wolf." He answered.

"Could you at least try!? If not I'll let you cut it out." I begged.

"I'll try." He spoke. He got out his needles and began to poke at certain points in the wolfs skin, after a few pokes he stood up and backed away a bit, "If this works he should wake up then vomit whatever is in its stomach. If it doesn't vomit the Innocence up, be ready to catch it again." Lavi and I both nodded as we watched the wolf.

Not even a minute later the wolf opened its eyes, and like Gramps said, vomited. After it did, the golden glow to its fur faded. It the quickly ran off into the bushes. Bookman then walked up to its vomit which I was able to smell now and picked something out of it, shaking it a bit before turning back to us.

What he was holding was a small golden cube, with two gear-like object spinning slowly around it in making a 'X' shaped as they crossed over. It emitted a light green glow.

"You were right Lavi, good job." he said.

"Is that the Innocence?!" I asked out of excitement.

"Yes." He replied simply.

"Can I hang on to it?" I asked, rather childishly.

"As long as you don't lose it." he said placing it in my right hand. I looked at in awe. I'd never seen anything like it to be honest. I guessed this is what Innocence looks like in its 'true form'.

"We need to get back to the town, Ryuzaki needs to see a Doctor for her injuries."

"Right." Lavi spoke as we begin to collect our things to leave. Lavi helped me put on my coat which he said they had to take off so Gramps could treat my wound. Lavi offered to carry Theodore for me which, I didn't decline, and we went on our way back to the town.

…

Omake

…

"Hey Ryuzaki, how can you use Theodore in battle when he's so heavy?" I heard Lavi say beside me.

"What are you talking about? He's super light? He can't be that heavy now can he?" I said, confused at what he said.

"What do you mean light?! This guy feels like he's 40 pounds!"

"You're just saying that because you're tired."

"No I'm not! He's actually really heavy. I don't understand how you can carry him when you yourself have no strength in your arms."

"Maybe it's because she's the accommodator for Theodore's innocence." Both me and Lavi looked to Gramps.

"You know, maybe he's right." Lavi thought out loud.

"Maybe he is."

…

AN: WELL WIPE ME SIDEWAYS AND CALL ME FRANK THAT TOOK A WHILE.

I really like this chapter, but damn was it hard to write! Not only was it my first time trying to write a 'real' battle scene, I was also have some issues with my computer. When I was at around the point in writing were Ryuzaki goes out to make the akuma kill himself my computer decided that'd be a good time to CRASH.

Thankfully, there is an auto-recover system on Word and I only ended up losing a few lines which I quickly rewrote. That's like if you were eating a doughnut and someone came and took it away from you just after you took a bite. Talk about rude!

I'm going to back up my stuff after this just to be safe, though. Other than that I really have nothing else to say about this chapter. I kinda wrapped up the ending a bit too quickly because I was getting tired at the time of writing this. It's 11:27pm right now when I'm writing these notes and I just finished up the chapter. Maybe I should go to bed early? Probably not.

I'm also looking forward to writing the next chapter! I've got a really funny scene planned and I can't wait to write it already!

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you in the next! Sorry if my writing for the battle was bad, it was kind of a first time for me. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll get back to you ASAP. Alright, that's all!

Best Wishes,

Shalcro~

…

Well well, for her first time writing a battle scene this went pretty well! This should have been published already, but of course I _had_ to get off the computer as soon as I started proofreading. Talk about lame.

I loved the golden wolf idea when she pitched it to me, I'm glad she didn't end up killing it to get the Innocence out TwT

I heard someone else is being introduced next chapter, not naming any names though ;3! I'm looking forward to seeing how she introduces them~

I don't have a lot of time to write, so I'll leave things at that! Hope you guys have been enjoying the story so far uvu

~Blizz

…


	8. VIII

…

VIII

…

My tired eyes lazily opened as I took in my surroundings, which I couldn't really do because there was something covering my eyes. I quickly sat and reached my hand up to pull whatever was on my face off while hearing something that almost sounded like a marble hitting the ground in the process. I pulled off whatever was on my face only to find it was a paper and in my act of pulling it off my face, I had crumpled it a bit.

I flipped it around to find out it was a note.

_Hey Ryu!_

_This is Lavi! You feel asleep on the train ride back to the Order and wouldn't get up so I dropped you off on one of the lobby's couches, I hope you don't mind!_

_Gramps and I went to report that we got back from the mission so you don't need to worry about that. The only thing you need to do is take the Innocence we got to Hevlaska._

_See you around!_

_Lavi_

There was a small heart doodled beside Lavi's name on the note. His writing was surprisingly neat, it wasn't fancy with all those loops and swirls you see in proper English writing, it was kept simple, clean, and easy to read. I expected his writing to be jagged and messy, written like someone was high on caffeine, but his writing looked like it was written by someone who put lots of time and care in it. It wasn't what I expected, to clear that up.

In other thoughts, I remembered that he had written about giving the Innocence we got to Hevlaska. The last I remember I had it in my back pocket, right?

Disregarding the note, I pushed my hand into my back pants pocket only to find nothing there. Panicking a bit I checked my other back pocket to find it again, empty. _Shit._

I frantically checked every pocket on my cargo pants, every pocket in my exorcist coat, which now had a rip on the left sleeve, probably from when I got cut there, and I even checked in my underwear and under my bando top. Finding it in none of those places I really started to panic now.

_Shit I fucked up. I lost the fucking innocence, I fucked up, shit, shit, shit, shit. Komui's gonna be sooooo mad. What do I d-_

My thoughts were cut off when I saw the Innocence laying, well, innocently on the ground. Relief filled my body when I saw it there. I guess that was what that sound was from before. I ran up to where the Innocence was laying and picked it up, glad that I hadn't lost it after all.

I guessed it was off to give Hevlaska the Innocence then to get my coat stitched up.

…

Hold the Innocence in cupped hands, I waited for the lift to reach the floor were Hevlaska was located. I still couldn't help but be fascinated by the strange substance. My love for learning made me want to know everything about it. I wanted to know how it worked, why it glowed, why there were strange gears turning slowly around it… everything, frankly. But since I had no why of finding out why any of these things were, it just left me staring at the object in awe.

I hoped my meeting with Hevlaska wouldn't be an awkward one. The last time I saw her was over a week ago and that was only to figure out what my synchronization rate was.

As I went farther in the building I gulped a bit, hoping this wouldn't be awkward. I'd actually like to form a good friendship with Hevlaska.

Soon I reached the level where Hevlaska was only to have her back facing me, not knowing I had gotten there. I decided to speak up.

"Ummm… Hevlaska?" I called out questioningly. She slowly turned her large body around to look down at me.

"Oh, good afternoon Miss Toge. Is there something you need?" She asked in her slow, angelic voice.

"Umm… yeah, I'm just here to give you the Innocence me, Bookman, and Lavi found on our mission." I said scratching the back of my head a bit before holding out my hand that held the Innocence.

"Thank you." She spoke, one of her hair picking up the Innocence lightly in my hands before pulling it inside her body. _I guess she stores them inside her body for safe keeping, then_, "This is the thirtieth piece of Innocence collected by the Order. Thank you for your hard work, Miss Toge." I blushed a bit at the praise she gave me.

"You're welcome, but it _is_ my job now, I guess." I said, scratching at the cut on my left arm. I felt a soft hair being placed on my hand as I did that.

"You shouldn't pick at your wounds, it will only prolong their recovery." She spoke in an almost motherly voice. I couldn't help but obey, my hand dropping from my cut.

"Yeah… you're right." I answered, "Your hair is really soft though." I said, trying my hardest to give a complement.

"Thank you." She replied. We stood, or Hevlaska hovered, I guess, for a few moments in an awkward silence before I spoke up.

"I guess I should be going now, I need to catch up with… Lavi… and stuff." I spoke.

"Please, be on your way." She spoke in her always-slow voice.

"Right, farewell then." I said setting the lift to Komui's office floor.

"Farewell."

…

Although my conversation with Hevlaska didn't go how I expected it to go, I still got what I needed to do, done. Friendships aren't made in a day, I guess… well, some are, but I guess mine and Hevlaska's wasn't.

With that said and done, I headed off to Komui's office to get my coat repaired. I got there only to find he wasn't there, but Komui _did_ say I could go to anyone in the science division for a new one, so I asked Johnny for the repair.

He was happy to fix it for me but he said he wanted to make me a new one. When I asked why, he said it was because the one he made - yes, he made my old one - was only based on some rough estimates that were made by Serein for me, and that he wanted to take proper measurements so he could make me the best one possible. I agreed and he quickly took my measurements before I left.

After getting that done, I thought some good reading was due, so I headed off to the library.

Striding up to the large double doors with my hands in my pockets, I pushed the doors opened and made my way inside. I took in the familiar smell of the books before wandering about to figure out what to read.

I first went to the science section, but found nothing of interest. I tried history next, but again, found nothing. Action, nope. Sci-fi, nadda. I tried almost every category in the library until I found myself in the romance section, only to find a certain white haired cutie, fellow golden golem resting on his head, looking up at the overly tall shelves.

"Hey."

"Eeeek!" was what he responded with before proceeding to drop all of the books he was carrying.

"Whoa, whoa, cutie calm down. It's just me." I reassured him, eyebrows raised.

"Oh, it's just you Ryuzaki. You startled me. And could you _please_ stop calling me 'cutie'? It's embarrassing." he said, frantically picking up his books back up, as if he was trying to hide something.

"No." I simply replied, I bent down to help him with his books before he interrupted me about halfway down.

"Y-you really don't have to help me! I-I can p-pick these up on my own!" he smiled, an obviously fake one, before reaching for the last book laying on the floor. I stood and quickly pressed my foot to the cover of the book and pulled my foot back and picked up the book.

I looked over the cover that was titled 'Be Mine.' I took a quick glace at Allen only to see him with a face so red it could be considered a tomato before quickly opening up to the first page of the book and reading the summary. It was an obvious romance novel, and cheesy sounding one at best. I smirked, closing the book before looking back up to the still-red Allen.

"Allen, do you like cheesy romance novels?" I asked,

"Please don't tell anybody." he whispered. If he wasn't so fucking cute right then, I probably would have told everyone in the whole fucking Order, but nope, he had to be adorable. I ended up blushing at him, feeling my heart rate pick up as I tried to avoided eye-contact.

"I-If you weren't so cute I would have told everyone in the Order!" I responded, holding out the book for him to take, "A-and if you're looking for a good romance novel, you should read, 'Forever One.' by Patrick Spiders." I said, awkwardly working up the courage to look back at him. His face didn't seem as red, but I was pretty sure mine was when he looked back at me. _Please don't tell me I'm fallin' for him?!_

"S-sure." He said quickly before taking the book out my hands and placing it on the top of the pile he had in is his hands, "I-I'll be off then, f-farewell." He quickly darted his way out of my sight.

_God fucking damn that kid._

…

I gave myself some time to cool down before picking a book to read for the next little while. I settled on a choosing a random book before finding a spot to sit down and read.

Wandering around I bit I didn't expect to find Lavi sitting at one of the many tables meant for reading,

"Hey Lavi." I spoke quietly as I sat down across from him. He didn't respond, "Hey Lavi!" I said a bit louder this time. He didn't respond again, he just kept looking down at his overly large book with a firm poker face. "Lavi!" Nothing, "Lavi, Lavi, Lavi, Lavi!" Nope, "Laaaavvviiii~!" I called, still nothing, "Lavi Bookman Jr.!" He stayed still, focusing on his book, which I couldn't tell was about because it was in some other language. I decided to get up to get him attention.

I stepped up behind him, poking his side and calling his name. I tried everything to get his attention, really. I poked him, shook his shoulders, pushed his head from side to side, ruffled his hair, took off his bandana and put it back on, you know, the works. I eventually settled that he wasn't going to pay any attention to me so I set my chin on his head and sighed.

As my chin was resting on his head I looked down to the book he was reading. Though it wasn't just _a_ book, it was _two_ books. A much smaller book was hidden behind the larger, I believed, Latin, one. It made me wonder why he would be hiding reading such a small book anyways,

"What are you even reading?" I wondered aloud. Saying this finally got a reaction out of Lavi as I felt his body tense, this just raised my curiosity more. I quickly snatched the smaller book hidden inside the larger book and hopped off Lavi. I quickly began to read the page Lavi was on.

"H-hey! Give that back!" I heard him yell. I only ignored him like he did to me before and continued to read. I was… somewhat shocked at what he was reading. I didn't take him for _that_ kind of guy. No, he couldn't have been…

"Lavi, why are you reading gay porn?" His face went beet red after I said that. _Man today is just getting better and better huh? First I find out Allen likes cheesy romance stories and now Lavi reads gay porn. This is great!_

"I… I hehe… I got to go do a-." I quickly grabbed the back of his shirt as he tried to run off.

"You're not going anywhere, Lavi." I smirked, "I knew you were a sex hog, but I never thought you go _this_ far into the porno world." Lavi just struggled in my grasp, I took another look inside the book, curious as to what else the book had to offer, I let go of Lavi at this point.

"It's not like I enjoy it or anything." he tried to cover it up, I arched an eyebrow.

"Lavi Jr. sure seems to disagree." I spoke staring at the bulge in his tight white pants, eyebrows raised. He quickly pushed his hands down to cover his crotch.

"That's not him name! His name is James!" he shouted back.

"Lavi we're in a library, be quite." Lavi just gave out a muffled growl, his face mixed with anger and embarrassment, "I didn't know the library had an adult section anyways. You need to show me where it is sometime." I huffed.

"That's cos' they don't!" he whispered angrily.

"Then where'd you get the book? And why are you reading it in the library? Wouldn't it be safer to read it, like, in your room or something?" I asked.

"In the town half a mile west from here, on their main street if you go into the alley beside Plain's Breadstore, take the second left and the first door on the right is a tiny shop that sells these books and I go there every Saturday at 9:30pm!" He said almost too quickly to understand, "And I can't read these books in my room because I share a room with Gramps!" I looked at him blankly.

"That was a bit too much information, buns." I said deciding to return the book to him. He quickly latched the book to his chest, like a mother trying to protect a child, "And if you share a room with Gramps, where do you keep all these books? I'm pretty sure you don't just keep these things laying around in an open shelf where everyone can see 'em."

"I keep them under one of the stone panels under my bed okay!" he responded.

"Well, you know what's going to happen if you do anything unruly with me, now don't cha!"

"Yes..." he huffed sulkily.

"Good, now let's go get some lunch, I haven't eaten anything since I got back."

"Right." He sighed.

…

The damn rabbit and I made our way to the dinning hall, my hunger pushing the thought of reading out of my mind. Lavi had calmed down a bit, I still couldn't really believe that he'd been so embarrassed. He didn't seem like the guy to be, I thought he'd just own up and say, 'You got me!', but that wasn't the case at all. He really wanted to keep this a secret. And it would be kept a secret as long as he'd be good.

We ordered and got our food before looking for a spot to sit.

"Oh Ryu! Let's sit over there!" Lavi pointed a free hand to a table in the corner of the room, pretty much empty table with one person sitting at it.

"Why there? There's tons of other free tables." I stated,

"Yeah, but Yu's sitting there!"

"Wait, what?" I spoke, confused, Lavi looked disappointed.

"His first name is 'Yu', now come on! Let's go sit with him!" I squinted a bit to get a better look at him from so far away, from what I could see, he didn't seem like the most pleasant of guys, he gave off some kind of angry aura.

"I'm not sure, he doesn't look too pleasant." I said, leaning a bit closer to Lavi to make sure no one heard me.

"Oh! Come on! He's not that bad!" Lavi spoke as he made his way to his table. I guess I had no say in this, so I went along with Lavi. I could always blackmail him later.

Once we got there it was pretty easy to tell that my predictions were correct. This 'Yu', that I also noticed was a Japanese name, did _not_ seem like the most friendly of fellows and really looked like he just wanted to be left alone. I felt kind of bad for letting Lavi drag me along to sit with a guy that looked like he wanted nothing to do with us, but it was too late to feel bad now.

"Hey Yu!" Lavi yelled out as he sat across from him, I sat beside Lavi awkwardly.

"Go away you stupid rabbit!" He yelled angrily. I gave myself time to get a good look at him. Or as I thought before, 'her', it was his long darkly blue hair that had probably thrown me off, but his voice confirmed that he was indeed, male.

"Aww! Come on, Yu! I have someone I want you to meet." Lavi called.

"Whoever they are, I don't give a shit. Now leave!" Yu yelled angrily.

"No!" Lavi said happily, he quickly swung an arm around my shoulder, "This is Ryuzaki Toge, she's a new exorcist here!" Lavi stated.

"H-hi." I said awkwardly. Yu gave out a 'Che!' before going back to being silent and eating his meal.

After a while Lavi was called to Komui's office for something, leaving me and Yu alone at the table together.

Yu seemed pretty content with us just sitting their in silence, though I could easily tell he didn't want me there. I guess he was just one of those people that didn't like being bothered. I could sympathize with him somewhat, when I got angry when I was little I'd always lock myself in my room and refuse to come out.

"Umm… Yu?" I started, I at least wanted to properly introduce myself.

"Don't call me Yu!" He shouted back, pulling a sword out of nowhere and pointing it at my face, it wasn't really surprising to me, I'd had worse shoved in my face.

"Then what do I call you?" I asked, pushing the blade from my face so I could look at his angry face properly.

"Kanda." He said plainly, putting his sword back in its sheath,

"Okay then _Kanda_, I just wanted to introduce myself properly, and not have someone else do it for me. My name is Ryuzaki Toge, though you probably already know that because I've been the talk of the Order since I came here. It's nice to meet you, Kanda." I said blandly, holding out a hand for a shake.

"Kanda Yu. Call me by my first name and I'll chop you arms off." He grasped my hand tightly and shook it quickly.

"I've had worse threats, bishy boy." He drew his sword again this time, stepping on the table and putting his blade to my throat.

"What'd you call me?!" He growled between clenched teeth.

"Nothin' but your new nickname!" I said happily. He then swung his sword over to hit my head, only for me to jump out of the way just in the nick of time.

"Hey lover boy, you've got some anger issues, you might want to get that checked out." I said making my leave, surprisingly not hungry anymore. I could hear him growling by now, and I was pretty sure I was causing a scene but I've been in all too many to be affected by it. He was going to be _fun_ to mess with, "Let's have a duel sometime!" I turned back to see him standing down the lane between tables, sword still drawn. He charged at me like an angry bull. Guess that duel was going to be now!

…

And that day, the growls of Yu Kanda and insults of Ryuzaki Toge could be heard throughout the whole Order.

…

AN: Well that was a short chapter. Sorry if I disappointed you. But I had fun writing this one, lots of fun scenes to go through!

My favourite one was the Lavi and Ryuzaki one! I thought of that scene one night in bed and I thought, 'Oh my god! I have to do that!'. I don't even care if Lavi really likes gay porn or not but I just had to write it!

The Allen scene is kind of based off one of the many kind of stupid headcanons I have. I think Allen really like cheesy love stories because he's actually really lonely, and those stories warm his heart just enough to keep him going! Isn't that cute! (I need to write a Laven one-shot about that!)

And we also finally got Kanda in the series! Huzzah! I like to think Ryuzaki and Kanda's relationship will play out kind of like Shizuo and Iyaza's from Durarara! Like how Iyaza is constantly making Shizuo mad and Shizuo just ends up throwing a vending machine at him! (I ship those two so hard BTW.)

Anyways, for once I'm not sure what's going to happen in the next chapter! Though I have a few ideas that I think could work in terms of the timeline. Though I do know chapter 10, or the chapter after the next one, will most likely be another mission chapter.

And I actually over estimated how long this story is going to be! I thought it was going to be 20-30 chapters long but I think it actually going to be more around the 15-20 mark, maybe 22-25 if needed. Turns out I have fewer ideas then I thought, so this story should be wrapped up pretty quick then! But there are still things I want to do, and I will say there are some good twists and such still left!

Anyways that's all I got for today! See you all in the next chapter!

Best Wishes,

Shalcro~

…

Jesus, Ryuzaki just loves to fuck with people. Word of the wise, friend, don't screw with Kanda!

Like really.

You might die or something.

_Really_ not advisable :V

Short chapters can be nice now and then, especially on my limited computer turns! Now I can actually do other things too ;3 I should be okay for proofreading for the time being, but ya never know, I could go back to next to no computer access [shrugs].

I'd say Shalcro's ideas for upcoming chapters are pretty neat, but even _I_ don't know 'em! She won't tell me a thing, wants to keep it a secret, pffft. I guess we'll all find out what happens at the same time!

I'll be heading off now so this can get posted, hope you enjoyed the read!

~Blizz

…


	9. IX

…

IX

…

My eyes jolted open from what felt like a century of sleeping. Looking forward I saw that I was staring up at the sky, a star-filled one at that, with a large yellow moon staring down back at me.

I sat up, and took in my surroundings. I was in a forest, filled with loads of pine trees.

My eyes widened with shook when I felt a pain overwhelm my back. The pain was strong enough to keep me from moving. I felt something raise up in my throat only for me to vomit out an iron tasting liquid. I assumed it was blood, and my guessing was proved right when I saw the red liquid fall onto the dirt ground below me.

I thought I should have fallen by now, but I stayed standing, long enough for me to hear explosions coming from behind me. I felt something being pulled out of my back before I finally dropped to my hands and knees panting for breath and shaking violently. I felt something come up my throat again only for me to let out the contents of stomach on to the dirt ground.

I lifted my head up to see what some going on. I weakly pushed myself from my hands and knees and looked around, still shaking violently. Behind me seemed to be the remains of some Level 1 akuma.

In front of me was nothing but an endless forest path, though when I looked at the ground I saw Theodore laying on the ground. My curiosity got the better of me and I weakly made my way over to where he was laying, holding my shoulders to try and get myself to calm down.

I stepped closer to him and soon sat on my knees and picked him up. He seemed to be fine, there were no cracks in his blade, or any rips in the leather wrap around his hilt.

My eyes widened in shock when he vanished from my hands and a thick, almost sparkling mist, filled the area around me. I looked around frantically, hoping to find a way out, only to see that the whole area around me was seemingly pure white from the mist.

I felt like crying. I didn't know what was going on, I was lost, no one was here with me, I couldn't see anything. I felt the hot tears fall down my cheeks as I just continued to look forward at the nothingness in front of me. I shut my eyes tight, not wanting to look at anything anymore. I wrapped my hands around my legs and dug my face in my knee, crying out, not knowing why.

"Don't cry." I heard someone speak. I heard shuffling in the dirt ground before someone lifted up my head with a hand on my chin.

I opened my eyes to see what was going on. Through my blurry vision I could see someone, a man, looking back at me. He wiped the tears in my eyes away with a handkerchief.

I got a better look at him; he was a grown man, looking to be no older then 18. Long white hair flowed down his shoulder. He was clad in medieval armor, looking just like a prince out of a fairytale.

"Please don't cry, master." he spoke out again, and that's when I realized it was the same voice that I had kept hearing. The one that gave me advice on my mission with Lavi and Bookman, he was kneeling right in front of me. He was real, I could see him, I had to ask;

"W-who… are y-you?" I managed between sobs.

"I am-"

…

"Hey Ryu! You in there?" I heard Lavi's voice from behind my bedroom door. I stayed laying in bed.

_Wait that dream… that man, he had the voice I heard from my mission? Was that my mind playing tricks on me? No... it couldn't have been, it was too-_

"I'm just gonna come in then." Lavi interrupted my thoughts, I just sighed and pulled the covers over my head. _God damn it Lavi! I was about to figure out who he was!_

I heard steps on the stone floor of my room. I then felt my beds mattress sink, indicating that Lavi had sat himself on my bed. The blankets that was covering my face was quickly lifted by Lavi's hand, I just kept my eye shut tightly, not wanting to get out of bed.

"Come on girly! It's almost 1:00! You need to get up!" Was it that late already? Even if it was I still didn't want to get out of bed. I huffed and pulled the covers back over my head.

I felt the mattress raise up again and I thought for a moment that I'd be left alone, and I was, for about 30 seconds before I felt Lavi climb under the covers and wrap his arms around my waist.

Nope, still not getting up.

"Come on Ryu! I'll go to lunch with you if you get!" I heard Lavi beg, his voice in a low whisper, it sent chills down my spine.

"No." I responded plainly, Lavi only moved his face closer to mine.

"Come on Ryu! Don't make me go _there_ with you." His voice was softer, more husky, and I think I knew what 'there' meant.

"I think I know what _there_ means, and I don't want to go _there_, so fine, you stupid rabbit."

"Really, I thought you'd be willing?"

"If I was, it'd be at a different place, and different time, rabbit." I could almost sense the raise of an eyebrow.

"So that means that you _are_ willing?" he asked.

"Maybe." I would have winked, but I didn't. I felt Lavi move out of the bed and I finally opened my eyes and got out of bed.

"By the way, Johnny finished your new coat, he asked me to bring it to ya'! That's why I'm here." he spoke.

"Oh really." I yawned, "He's a quick worker then. You mind waiting outside my door for me? I gotta change."

"Sure, but maybe next time I won't have to leave your room for that~!" I'm pretty sure if he had a second eye, he would have winked.

"Maybe." I smirked. Lavi quickly left my room and shut the door. Though I was pretty sure he was peeping through the cracks of the door.

…

We soon made our way down to the dining hall, ready for lunch. I was surprised I had slept in so late, most of the time I'd wake up around 8:00am then get ready for the day from there, but today I slept in till noon. I wondered why.

Our way to lunch was mostly silent. I was thinking about my dream I had last night, and if it even meant anything, Lavi broke that silence eventually.

"Hey Ryu, you're being awful quite. You okay?" He asked, blinking over at me.

"Yeah, I'm fine…" I spoke, still a little lost in thought.

"Did I make you feel uncomfortable earlier? I'm sorry if I did." he continued, concern creeping into his voice. _That's odd, I didn't think he'd be the type to apologize for his flirting, does that mean… he really wants to be friends with me? Close friends?_

"I've put up with your flirting since the first day I meet you, I don't think _that'd_ bother me." I paused for a moment, "And plus, I've had worse done to me." I added.

"Really! Like what?"

"It's… something I'd rather not talk about." I took in a deep breath. I wondered if I should tell him about my dream, everything about it frankly, but I decided not to. It could have just been my brain messing with me, and I didn't want him to worry over something that ended up being nothing at all, so I lied, "Though I just had a weird dream last night!" I spoke happily.

"A weird dream? Ya' sure it wasn't a nightmare?" He asked

"I guess it was a bit scary." I said plainly, hoping I didn't give out to much information.

"Ohh! Can you remember what it was about? Nightmares usually try ta' teach people things depending what they're 'bout!" he asked cheerily.

"I can't remember much about it," I paused, trying to make something up that wouldn't worry him, "Thought I do remember it being scary… I was kind of relieved when you woke me up… really." That was a total lie, of course. I was in all honesty disappointed when he woke me up. I was just about to figure out who that guy was, even if he was just something my mind made up to trick me.

"Awww! That's sweet Ryu!" He swung an arm around my shoulder, "Maybe I should come and wake you up every morning then! You know, just in case of nightmares!"

"I can handle my own nightmares, frankly!" I spat back at him, "But I wouldn't mind you waking me up when I sleep in."

"Alright then!" He cheered, pecking me lightly on the cheek, which became tinged with a light blush afterward.

…

Lunch, or breakfast for me, went pretty uneventful. Though Jerry did scold me, saying that I shouldn't be sleeping in when I should be doing my work, which just so happened to be helping out with the science division. Lavi and I had our average conversation as we ate, and all went well.

After lunch, Lavi told me Bookman had given him a weeks worth of his work for him to do so he couldn't hang out with me today. I had given up figuring out what he did for his work, but I'd figure out someday. I understood and he went off for his work. I decided it was about time I got some of my own work done, so I left off for Komui's office.

Though, on my way there I saw Allen and Lenalee looking ready to leave for something. I quickly ran up to the pair to ask what was up.

"Hey Allen, Lenalee!" I shouted as I made my way closer to them.

"Oh, hey Ryuzaki!" I heard Lenalee say as she waved happily at me.

"Hello Ryuzaki!" I heard Allen say along with Lenalee, though he didn't wave as he seemed to be carrying something. Once I reached them I asked,

"Where are you guys going?" Lenalee smiled before answering.

"Allen and I are going on a mission together!" I felt a strike of jealousy hit me. _Allen, on a mission with Lenalee? … I… kinda… wanted to go on a mission with him._

"Oh, that's cool I guess. Where are ya' going for your mission?" I said, trying not to let my jealousy show through my words.

"Germany!" Lenalee spoke again.

"Oh that's cool, I've never been there before. Do you mind if I walk with you guy out of the Order?" _Might as well get as much time in with them as I could before they left._

"Sure!" Lenalee spoke once again; it seemed like she was going to be holding most of the conversation. So I began to follow them around the building. I walked beside Allen.

"So, how long do you think you'll be gone?" I asked, Lenalee looked up to the ceiling, thinking.

"Hmmm, I don't know how long the mission should take but Germany is pretty far away, so I'd say about a week or so." That statement just made me feel worse - Lenalee and Allen, alone for a week? There's a lot of stuff that can happen in a week…

"Oh… you guys better work hard on your mission. Speaking of missions, do you mind filling me in on what's caught Komui's attention? Too many akuma? Maybe some Innocence?" I asked, still covering up my real feelings.

"Komui said there's a town that keeps reliving the same day. He thinks it's Innocence doing it." Allen spoke from beside me.

"Oh yeah! I think I remember Komui telling me about that a little while ago. I kept telling him to send out some exorcists to check it out. I'm glad he finally got somebody on the case though!" That was an honest statement, though. Komui kept telling me about it and how he thought Innocence was behind it, I pestered him for a whole day to get him to send someone out but he just kept running about and making silly excuses to not do his work.

"Speaking of missions, I heard you went on your first one a few days ago, how did it go?" Allen asked.

"Yeah! I haven't been able to talk to you since then, how'd it go?" Lenalee added. I was flattered that they asked though, I mean, isn't this supposed to be our work?

"It was alright, I guess. We managed to get the Innocence within the first day, but we had to wait another day till we could get home 'cause the train that we needed to catch home only came once a day." I heard Lenalee giggle a bit from beside Allen, I got confused. Did she think of something funny?

"What's so funny Lenalee?" Allen asked for me.

"Nothings funny, it's just that you called the Order your home." I raised my eyebrows.

"I did?" I had never thought of the Order as a home before. The only home I ever had was… back with my family, I thought of this place as a work house.

"Yes you did, silly! Welcome home!" My heart warmed a bit as she said those words, I guess I could consider the Order a home.

"Does that mean you guys are my family too?" I asked.

"Of course!" Lenalee called happily, which brought a smile to my face.

…

"Well, this is where we part." Lenalee spoke as she and Allen stepped into the wobbly boat.

"I guess it is." I sighed, placing my hands on my hips, "You guys have a safe trip, alright?"

"Don't worry, we will! And we'll be sure to bring back the Innocence too!" Lenalee replied, settling into the boat with Allen getting ready to start rowing the boat.

"I'll be sure to get Jerry to have a dish of your favourite meals when you get back~!" I spoke, giving a smile.

"That sounds great!" Allen hummed, I chuckled. I held out a fist in front of Allen, he just stared at it, confused.

"Don't leave me hangin'!" I smirked. Realization struck Allen quickly as he gave me a light fist bump. It was adorable, but I didn't forget to give Lenalee one too, "Good luck!" I spoke before untying the boat from the dock for them, waving with my good arm as they left down the stream.

"Aishiteru wa!"

_Oh shit…_

…

Allen looked back at Ryuzaki as she heard him yell out those words. Not knowing what they meant. He saw Ryuzaki covering up her mouth as she quickly ran up the stairs that lead back to the Order. Once she was out of sight Allen turned back to Lenalee.

"Do you know what she said, Lenalee?" He asked. Lenalee only smiled lightly.

"No idea!" She winked.

…

AN: Huzzah! Another chapter done! I am just on a roll these days, I'm having a lot of fun writing this story!

I really have nothing to say about this chapter, it's mostly filler, but it's still got some important parts in it. And don't worry everything will be explained at some point.

This chapter got done really quickly though, I started it later one night, got a good part of it done before heading off to bed, then I picked it up the next day and worked on it in small time periods and finished it in about a day! I'm very proud of myself!

Anyways, I've got nothing else to say because if I said anything else, I'd probably just spoil the whole story. Anyways I hope you enjoyed this chapter. The next chapter should be a bit longer, I have two ideas for the next chapter and either one of them will serve for a long chapter, so look forward to that!

Alright see you in the next chapter!

Best Wishes,

Shalcro~

…

This was a nice chapter to read ;w;

I was confused at first, am I'm sure some of were (I had to scan through the previous chapter to see if I forgot something important!) but looks like it was all a dream~ Though whether or not it means anything is for us to know and for you to find out ;3

It seems like Miranda will be brought in soon, seeing as we've reached the Repeating Town Arc, that'll be nice. I can't help but wonder what Shalcro has planned for next chapter, knowing her it'll be something cool!

I'll leave you guys at that, short beta-note for a shortish chapter ;3

Hope you're looking forward to the next chapter, I know I am!

~Blizz

…


	10. X

…

X

…

"Ryuzaki! More coffee please!" I heard one of the many scientists call.

"I'm comin', I'm comin'!" I spat, making my way over to the scientist, filling up his empty cup with coffee pot in my hand, "I don't get how you guys can drink this stuff all the fuckin' time. It's gross." I hate coffee, honestly. Too bitter for my liking.

"I didn't like it very much at first either. But I got used to the taste after a while, and ended up liking it." the scientist replied.

"Ehh, I guess you're right. But for now, I hate it." I said in a curt manner.

"Ryuzaki! Come here for a second!" I heard Komui yell from halfway across the room.

"Yeah! I'm comin'!" I shouted back, "Sorry 'bout that, Komui's callin' me." I said back to the scientist.

"Not a problem. I've got work to do anyways." He gestured to the mountain of paperwork on his desk. I chuckled a bit before running through the office to Komui's workplace.

"What is it? Is there another bug on the wall or somethin'?" I asked, arching an eyebrow.

"That was one time!" he called back, jumping out of his seat and over the desk, "I called you here to ask you about something… and to get another cup of coffee." I huffed as he passed me his bunny mug and filled it up with some more coffee. Passing back his mug I asked,

"What you want to know this time?" I scoffed.

"I want you to tell me how you got Theodore. You said you found him, right?" I huffed again, placing the coffee pot on the ground beside the couch in Komui's office before falling back into the sofa.

"Well, sit your lazy ass down, we might be here a while." I huffed, pulling out a smoke and lighting it. "And if this ends up being another one of your excuses to get out of doin' your work, I'll get Reever on your ass."

"It's not!" he whined, making his way back behind his desk. "And I'm not lazy!" he continued.

"Oh yeah! You're toootally not lazy! You're the hardest working person in the whole science division!" I said with a roll of my eyes.

"Yeah I a-"

"I was being sarcastic." I spat, "Jesus Christ. I'm honestly starting to believe your whole sister complex is just another excuse as well." I sighed.

"Excuse me?!" he spat back.

"Did I touch a nerve?" I questioned, smirking.

"In fact you did. You have no idea what Lenalee had to go through!"

"You bein' serious?"

"Very." He glared.

"Alright, alright. Sorry. I shouldn't be messing with my boss anyways." I spoke, "So, you wanna know how I found Theodore?" I asked.

"Yes." he spat, still offended by my last comment.

"Alright then." I grinned.

…

"That'll teach ya'!" the older man called, giving another firm kick to my stomach. I coughed afterwards, spiting up iron-tasting liquid, "Don't come into our territory!" he spat, before trotting his way off, acting like some high and mighty being._Fucker._ I thought.

I lay there for some time, to make sure the fucker was gone. I sat up in the damp alleyway, leaning my back against the tough brick wall while clenching my stomach as I tried my hardest to keep my last meal inside me.

Eventually my weakness took over, and I vomited my last meal on the ground beside me. _Gross._Was what I thought as the stench of stomach acid filled the tight alley.

Not having any energy left, I passed out. This was all too familiar to me. Step inside someone's 'territory', then get beat the shit out of.

Oh, and the 'territory' part is bullshit. People think they own certain blocks of streets, and if anyone else shows their face uninvited, they more often then not, get the shit beaten out of them.

But the problem was that I didn't have a choice _but_ to go there. I wasn't allowed in the higher places of town. People called me off as a 'rat' or 'trash', and would say things like, 'Go back to the dumps, we don't want to see you here!'.

I ignored them, but soon it got to the point where people would throw me out of their towns and shove me off. Those rich pricks. So I would be shoved off to poor areas, forced to find hard working jobs for low pay. But I'd get them back someday. I knew that.

…

My eyes opened when I felt something cold being placed on my forehead. I looked up to see a buff looking guy staring down at me.

"So, you're awake." he spoke in a deep, beefy voice. I tired to sit up but the buffy man only pushed my head back down, "Don't get up, you've got a fever." he spoke.

"I don't got no fever!" I shot back, sitting up just fine on my own. Before weakly laying my head on the head-board of the bed I was laying on.

"Yes you do, kid." He spoke again before picking up a wet cloth that was on my lap and pressing it to my forehead. It was probably the cold thing he slapped on my forehead when I woke up. I huffed and used my left hand to hold the cloth on my forehead, "Now drink up." He held out mug for me and I snatched it out of his hands and took a sip of whatever was in it.

"So where am I? And who the fuck are you?" I snapped, eyes narrowed.

"A girl your age shouldn't be using words like that." he stated plainly.

"'Scuse me?" I started, "I'm 15 years old, I can say anything I want! I asked you a goddamn question, now fuckin' answer it." The man huffed.

"Where are your parents, kid?" I glared.

"Answer my question first and I'll tell ya'!" He just let out a heavy sigh.

"I found you passed out in alleyway beside my house with a fever, so I took you inside. There ain't no hospital in this town. It's the least I can do for this run down place. My name is Cliff Scotts." He held out one of his large hands for me to shake.

"Ryuzaki Toge, it's Japanese." I shook his hand.

"Nice to meet ya'." he said plainly again, "Now, where are your parents?" I snorted.

"I got 'em, but I'm on my own."

"Why's that?"

"Don't think I ran away or anythin', 'cause I didn't. I left home to get a job to get money for my parent's farm." I spat out, "We aren't the richest family, ya' see."

"I see." he spoke out again, standing to leave, though he stopped once he got to the doorway, "You're gonna stay here till you get better. If you need anything just give a holler."

"'Kay." I said quickly before placing the mug of hot water and honey on the bed side table, laying down, and falling back asleep.

…

I woke up once again to the sound of the door opening. I let out a low growl before shifting in the bed.

"Miss Ryuzaki? I've brought you some food." I instantly sat up at the mention of food.

"Where's the food!" I snapped grumpily.

"Right here.." a shy female voice chimed.

"Give it! I'm starving!"

"R-Right." A girl, looking to be about 11 or 12 years old, placed a tray of food on my lap, that held a bowl of chicken soup and some crackers. The girl also set a cup filled with a white liquid on my bedside table before pulling a chair up to the side of my bed.

"Itadakimasu." I said quietly before digging into my meal.

"What did you just say?" the girl beside me asked.

"Itadakimasu. Japanese people say it before they eat." I said plainly.

"You're Japanese? You don't look very Japanese."

"Mom was English, Dad was Japanese. I ended up lookin' more like my Mum." I replied.

"Oh. That's interesting."

"So what's your name, kid?"

"Tatum Scotts. The man you met before was my daddy!"

"And how old are ya'?" I added as an afterthought.

"Eleven and a half." she chimed proudly.

"That's cute." I replied, finishing up my bowl of soup that I mixed the crackers in earlier. I reached for the glass of milk on the bed-side, but Tatum grabbed it for me. I let out a soft thanks and she took the tray from my lap.

"How old are you?" she asked in a sing-song voice.

"Fifteen." I replied.

"That's cute." she copied with a mischievous grin.

"Tatum! I need some help down here!" I heard a familiar voice ring from outside my room.

"Sorry, my daddy's calling me!" She stood up and dusted off her apron. I gave a quick nod as she left the room.

…

The next few days at the Scotts house was rather uneventful. Tatum and Cliff, who seemed to be the only people living there, helped nurse me back to health. On the second day of staying at their house, Tatum said she went out to the market and got me some medicine, which I could have never dreamed of having for myself. I would really have to thank these guys big time someday.

I also figured out the two ran a restaurant downstairs, which would explain the rather nice smells that would find their way into my room every so often.

On the third day I was feeling well enough, probably from the medicine, to walk around, Tatum offered me a bath and I gladly accepted. Tatum was also thoughtful enough to wash my clothes for me while I was bathing. They were just too kind.

On the fourth day I was feeling fine, so Cliff gave me a quick inspection before saying I was mostly okay, and that I'd be fine to go out on my own again.

While I was getting ready to leave, Tatum, the talkative little thing, mentioned something about her daddy being a weapons collector. I instantly jumped at her words, asking if he'd be willing to give something to me. From the shit I'd been through, I kind of needed one. I didn't really care if I couldn't use it - as long as it looked scary enough to keep people off me, then, it'd work.

Once I was finished packing up, Tatum showed me the way to her dad's storage room, where Cliff was rearranging some stuff. The room's walls were covered in weapons. Swords, flails, morning stars, scythes, hand guns, rifles, shot-guns... you name it, they were probably there.

"Daddy! Ryuzaki says she wants a weapon." she chimed happily.

"And why should I give such a young girl one of these dangerous weapons?" he questioned, eyebrows raised.

"Come on!" I demanded, "You saw me when ya' found me! If I had some kind of weapon I could at least defend myself!" I begged.

"Defend yourself from what?" I growled in frustration.

"People keep beatin' me up, when I walk in to their territory, I thought if I had some big cool weapon, it could scare 'em off so I don't get beat up so often!" I explained.

"So you want it for shows?" he asked.

"Yes!" I replied.

"You promise you won't use it to hurt anyone? Even if they're hoods?" he continued, narrowing his eyes.

"Yes!"

"As long as it's one I don't like." he scoffed. I gave out a relieved sigh, before beginning to look around the room.

I looked at almost every weapon in the room. Every so often having Cliff chime in saying things like, 'I really like that one, don't take it.' or 'That one isn't my favourite.', stuff like that, that was until a certain sword caught my eye. It was a two-handed longsword, with a thick metal handle that had something carved into it, small curved blades sticking out from a green jewel on the middle of the hilt.

I picked it up with ease before asking Cliff about it,

"How about this one? I really like it?" I asked. Cliff looked back at me, a bit of shock carved into his usually emotionless face, "What?" I asked.

"How are you doing that Ryuzaki?!" I heard Tatum ask behind me.

"Doin' what?" I asked, confused.

"Picking that sword up! It's like, super heavy!"

"What are you talkin' 'bout? This thing is super light!" I asked, touching on of the blades on the side of the hilt, watching in awe as they span lightly.

"That is weird." Cliff murmured, "That sword is really heavy, even for me."

"Does that me I can keep it?" I asked, oblivious.

"I have no need for a sword that is too heavy to be used properly, so yes you can have it." he spoke. I let out a small 'Yes!' in my victory. I examined the sword a bit, looking at what was carved into the hilt.

"Theodore?" I questioned,

"That was probably the creator of the sword's name. Craftsman like to mark their work. Though I've never heard of a craftsman named Theodore."

"Theodore it is then!" I grinned.

"What?"

"My sword's got to have a name! And Theodore is just that name!"

…

"Is that so…?" Komui spoke, taking a quick sip of his coffee.

"What? Were you expecting something amazin'? Like I had to fight 14 dragons before I stole the damn sword out of a chest or somethin'?" I asked with a snort.

"No, I'm just wondering why a sword with Innocence would be in a collector's basement." He said rather bluntly.

"Beats me. From what I gathered Innocence could be found anywhere though, even in people's bodies!"

"I guess you're right. Anyways you're free to go Ryuzaki, now shoo! I've got work to do." I rolled my eyes, getting up form the couch and picking up the coffee pot I had left there beside it.

"Like you'd do it anyways."

"I _so_ do my work!" Komui yelled back.

"Heh, I've heard worse. Why'd you want to know how I found my Innocence anyways?" I asked, tipping my head lightly to the side.

"Just wondering."

…

AN: Yeah! Another chapter, sorry if this one was shitty, I kinda half-assed it. Sorry!

I kinda of have some bad news though, for those of you who came to this story looking for action, I'm afraid there isn't going to be as much as I thought. This story is only going to have a total of about five missions, including the one I already wrote.

This story started off as an experiment with OC's and how they (mostly Ryuzaki) interact with other characters. Sorry to let you down on that if that's what you were looking forward to.

I hope you guys aren't disappointed, but I have a lot more fun writing character interactions than anything, and trust me, I've got some good ones planned. So I guess you guys can count this whole story as a bad filler episode from the anime?

Anyways that's all I got to say for this chapter! Sorry it took so long to get out, I started writing a Laven story and I've also been writing that at the same time as this one. Please go check it out if you like that pairing! Anyways I'm gonna leave and get started on chapter 11. See you all later.

Best Wishes,

Shalcro~

…

I haven't taken a look at her Laven fic since I'm not a fan of that pairing, but I suggest checking it out if that's your kinda ship! The premise is interesting, from what she's explained to me, so it should be a nice read!

Even if you're really only here for action, it's worth reading the interactions here as well. Some people just are better at character interactions than action, which sucks if that's what you're after, but hey, there must be other fics out there for that ;3

I betcha Komui was just being lazy here, as much as he likes to deny it. What a butt. We're onto you, ya weirdo inventor.

I was almost expecting an akuma attack or something that'd cause her to find the sword out of desperation, it woulda been interesting, buuuut woulda also likely involved the deaths of Cliff and Tatum, which would suck. So I'm glad it was like this :B

Here's looking forward to chapter 11! Even without the promise of tons of action, I hope you continue to read on!

~Blizz

…


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